Poems on several occasions

Ere yet his soul released from mouldering clay,
Springs from the slighted earth, and wings away,
Essay thy strength! Let praise salute his ear,
The only truth he never wish'd to hear.
Let but a father read with favouring eyes,
And bless me yet again before he dies.
Paid are the strains! his blessing far outweighs
A courtier's patronage, or critic's praise,
Or a Young's pension, or a Dryden's bays.

With opening life, his early worth began;
The boy misleads not, but foreshows the man.
Directed wrong, though first he miss'd the way,
Train'd to mistake, and disciplined to stray;
Not long:—for reason gilded error's night,
And doubts, well-founded, shot a dawn of light.
Nor prejudice o'ersway'd his heart and head,
Resolved to follow truth where'er she led,
The radiant track audacious to pursue,
From fame, from interest, and from friends he flew.
Those shock'd him first who laugh at human sway,
Who preach, “Because commanded, disobey;”
Who law's and gospel's bonds in sunder rend,
And blush not Bradshaw's saintship to defend;
Alike the crown and mitre who forswore,
And scoff'd profanely at the martyr's gore;
Though not in vain the sacred current flow'd,
Which gave this champion to the church of God.

No worldly views the real convert call;
He sought God's altar when it seem'd to fall;

106

To Oxford hasted, e'en in dangerous days,
When royal anger struck the fated place;
When senseless policy was pleased to view
With favour all religions but the true;
When a king's hand stretch'd out, amazed, they saw,
And troops were order'd to supply the law.
Then luckless James possess'd the British throne,
And for the papal grandeur risk'd his own;
Enraged at all who dared his schemes oppose,
Stern to his friends, but ductile to his foes.
Then Jesuits' wiles our Church's fall combined,
Till Rome, to save her, with Geneva join'd.

107

Lo! Orange sails, the prudent and the brave,
Our fears to scatter, and our rights to save.
This Briton's pen first pleaded William's cause,
And pleaded strongly for our faith and laws.

Nor yet unmention'd shall in silence lie
His slighted and derided poetry;
Should Brown revile, or Swift my song despise,
Should other Garths and other legions rise.
Whate'er his strains, still glorious was his end,—
Faith to assert, and virtue to defend.
He sung how God the Saviour deign'd to expire,
With Vida's piety, though not his fire;
Deduced his Maker's praise from age to age,
Through the long annals of the sacred page.
Not cursed, like syren Dryden, to excel,
Who strew'd with flowerets fair the way to hell;
With atheist doctrines loosest morals join'd,
To rot the body, and to damn the mind;
All faith he scoff'd, all virtue bounded o'er,
And thought the world well barter'd for a whore!
Sworn foe to good, still pleading Satan's cause,
He crown'd the devil's martyrs with applause.
No Christian e'er would wish that dangerous height,
“Nor would I write like him:—like him to write,
If there's hereafter, and a last great day,
What fire's enough to purge his crimes away?

108

How will he wish each lewd, applauded line,
That makes vice pleasing, and damnation shine,
Had been as dull as honest Quarles' or mine!”
So chants the bard his unapplauded lays,
While Dunton's prose a golden medal pays,
And Cibber's forehead wears the regal bays.
Though not inglorious was the poet's fate,
Liked and rewarded by the good and great;
For gracious smiles not pious Anne denied,
And beauteous Mary bless'd him when she died.

132

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO MY BROTHER CHARLES.

APRIL 20TH, 1732.

Though neither are o'erstock'd with precious time—
If I can write it, you can read my rhyme:
And find an hour to answer, I suppose,
In verse harmonious, or in humble prose,
What I, when late at Oxford, could not say,
My friends so numerous, and so short my stay.
Let useless questions first aside be thrown,
Which all men may reply to, or that none:
—As, whether doctors doubt the dean will die,
Or F--- still retains his courtesy;
Or I---n dies daily in conceit,
Dies without death, and walks without his feet;
What time the library completes its shell;
What hand revives the discipline of Fell;

133

What house for learning shall rewards prepare,
Which orators and poets justly share,
And see a second Atterbury there?

Say, does your Christian purpose still proceed
To assist, in every shape, the wretch's need?
To free the prisoner from his anxious jail,
When friends forsake him, and relations fail?
Or yet, with nobler charity, conspire
To snatch the guilty from eternal fire?
Has your small squadron firm in trial stood,
Without preciseness, singularly good?
Safe march they on, 'twixt dangerous extremes
Of mad profaneness, and enthusiasts' dreams?
Constant in prayer, while God approves their pains,
His Spirit cheers them, and his blood sustains!
Unmoved by pride or anger, can they fear
The foolish laughter, or the envious fleer?
No wonder wicked men blaspheme their care;
The devil always dreads offensive war.
Where heavenly zeal the sons of night pursues,
Likely to gain, and certain not to lose;
The sleeping conscience wakes by dangers near,
And pours the light in, they so greatly fear.

But, hold! perhaps this dry religious toil
May damp the genius, and the scholar spoil!
Perhaps facetious foes or meddling fools
Shine in the class, and sparkle in the schools;
Your arts excel, your eloquence outgo,
And soar like Virgil, or like Tully flow;

134

Have brightest turns and deepest learning shown,
And proved your wit mistaken, by their own!
If not, the wights should moderately rail,
Whose total merit, summ'd from fair detail,
Is, sauntering, sleep, and smoke, and wine, and ale!

How contraries may meet without design,
And pretty gentlemen and bigots join!
A pert young rake observes, with haughty airs,
That “none can know the world who say their prayers;”
And Rome, in middle ages, used to grant,
The most devout were still most ignorant.
So, when old bloody Noll our ruin wrought,
Was ignorance the best devotion thought.
His crop-hair'd saints all marks of sense deface,
And preach that learning is a foe to grace:
English was spoke in schools, and Latin ceased;
They quite reform'd the language of the beast.

One or two questions more, before I end,
That much concern a brother and a friend.
Does John beyond his strength presume to go,
To his frail carcass literally foe?
Lavish of health, as if in haste to die,
And shorten time to insure eternity?
Does Morgan weakly think his time mis-spent?
Of his best actions can he now repent?
Others, their sins with reason just deplore,
The guilt remaining when the pleasure's o'er:
Shall he for virtue, first, himself upbraid,
Since the foundation of the world was laid?

135

Shall he (what most men to their sins deny)
Show pain for alms, remorse for piety?
Can he the sacred eucharist decline?
What Clement poisons here the bread and wine?
Or does his sad disease possess him whole,
And taint alike the body and the soul?

If to renounce his graces he decree,
O that he could transfer the stroke to me!
Alas! enough what mortal e'er can do
For Him that made him, and redeem'd him too?
Zeal may to man, beyond desert, be show'd;
No super-erogation stands with God.
Does earth grow fairer to his parting eye?
Is heaven less lovely, as it seems more nigh?
O, wondrous preparation this—to die!

296

AN ELEGY ON DR. FRANCIS ATTERBURY,

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.

“There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest.”
—Job.

Love, strong as death, my glowing heart inspire,
And blend the Christian's with the poet's fire;
Adorn a father's fame with pious lays,
Till Faction pardon, if she dare not praise!
Should miscreants base their impious malice shed,
To insult the great, the venerable dead;
Let truth, resistless, blast their guilty eyes,
Bright as from clouds the red-wing'd lightning flies,
Bright as the sword of flame that guarded Paradise,

Attend, ye good! whose zeal, unshaken, owns
The churches' altars, and the prelates' thrones:
Ye wise and just! who hate the devil's plea,
Excusing crimes by feign'd necessity:
Ye firm and brave! whose courage scorns to bend,
Nor stoops in danger to desert a friend:
Ye plain and true! who, scann'd by hostile eyes,
Disdain the mean advantage of disguise:
Ye pure of hand! whom knaves for idiots hold,
Despising lustre of ill-gotten gold:
Faithful, but few! to you my strains belong;
Applaud my friendship, and accept my song.

Hail, happy sire! The pain of life is o'er,
Stranger and wandering pilgrim now no more;

297

At home,—at rest,—secure in blissful skies,
Where envy drops its snakes, and fraud its guise.
See, seraph-guards the starry crown prepare!
See, smiling angels fly to greet thee there!
Lo, Hyde, to exile doom'd on earth alone,
Springs to salute thee from his azure throne!
Nor yet, below, thy envied glory dies:
Long as the sun rolls o'er the empyreal skies;
When pyramids, unfaithful to their trust,
Crumble to atoms, with their founders' dust;
When solid marble, mouldering, wastes away,
And lies desert the monumented clay;
Thou still shalt live, to deathless fame consign'd;
Live like the best and bravest of mankind.

Where sleeps great Hannibal, the scourge of Rome?
Or who can point out awful Cato's tomb?
What breathing busts—what sculptured angels rise,
To adorn the place where Charles the Martyr lies?
No burial rites his impious hangmen gave,
Not the poor favour of a decent grave.
When Anna rests, with kindred ashes laid,
What funeral honours grace her injured shade?
A few faint tapers glimmer'd through the night,
And scanty sable shock'd the loyal sight.
Though millions wail'd her, none composed her train,
Compell'd to grieve, forbidden to complain.

298

How idly scornful the contempt express'd!
How mean the triumph o'er a saint deceased!
So when death's bloodiest paths the martyrs trod,
To conscience faithful, firm to heaven and God,
The insulting foe their bones, to dust calcined,
Gave to the flowing stream, and flying wind.
Vain was the tyrant's art, the demon's vain,
In heights, in depths, their atoms safe remain:
Heaven views its treasure, with a watchful eye,
Till the last trumpet calls it to the sky.

Nor more can powers infernal strike with dread
The soul when living, than the body dead,
Where grace divine, with native courage join'd,
Inspirits and exalts the Christian's mind.

When hapless James, with rage untimely shown,
For Rome's ungrateful pontiff risk'd his throne;
And boastful Jesuits hoped our fall to see,
With Julian's spite, without his subtlety;
The faithful priest our suffering church defends,
Careless of mighty foes and feeble friends;
His early pen for pure religion draws,
With strength and fervour worthy of its cause.
So when brave Luther stemm'd corruption's tide,
With zeal, and truth, and conscience on his side;
Him nor loud threats nor whispers low could stay,
Nor chains, nor racks, nor fires obstruct his way,—
Resolved to oppose proud Babel's haughty powers,
And make Rome tremble through her seven-fold towers.

299

When William reigns, the valiant and the wise,
And foes profess'd to priestly synods rise,
To check encroaching power, the champion fights
For long-neglected sacerdotal rights.
Scarcely the adverse chief his force withstands,
Till raised and strengthen'd by imperial hands.
These point the labour, and reward assign,
Direct the battery, and instruct the mine;
The exhausted war renew with weapons keen,
Near, though in clouds, and mighty, though unseen.
So the good Dardan prince, as Virgil feign'd,
With fates and gods averse a war maintain'd,
Dauntless in flames:—till his enlighten'd eyes
Against his Troy beheld immortals rise;
Juno and Pallas lead their Greeks to charge,
And Jove o'ershades them with his sovereign targe;
Neptune, enraged, o'erwhelms the smoking walls,
And, by the hand that raised her, Ilium falls.

Perpetual storms his steady mind engage,
Trials of warmest youth and wisest age.
—Whatever frauds to legal craft belong,
Mazes of lies, and labyrinths of wrong;

300

—Whate'er unjust in precedent appears,
Shaded with darkness of revolving years,
Till wrong seems ripen'd into right by time,
And age makes theft a venerable crime;
(While, fond of present rest, the reverend drone
Buys his own ease with treasure not his own;)
—Whate'er of weight is cast on friendship's side,
By ministerial guile and lordly pride;
—Skilful to search, and faithful to display,
And bold to call forth midnight into day,
To no base arts his steady virtue leans,
Disdaining conquest by ignoble means;
Pursuing truth with ever-active fire,
And dauntless to assert as to inquire.
In vain or power or wealth the tempter shows,
Or friends entreating turn insidious foes;
Nor smoothest prayers divert, nor danger awes
From gaining malice, while he gains his cause.
So when to Abram's first-born son were given
The temporal blessings of propitious Heaven,
Though doom'd from Canaan banishment to bear,
The fate was prosperous, and the lot was fair.
Behold him great in height of battle grow!
Still strong his arm, still prevalent of bow!
Ordain'd by none to fall, yet all to oppose,
A single conqueror, with the world his foes.

To mightier dangers yet his virtues rise,
His panoply no common vengeance tries,
From long-collecting stores the treasured thunder flies.

301

Lightnings, thick shot, around his temples glare,
Aim'd rightly by the regent of the air;
Actors were chose, skill'd in hell's deepest plots;
Actors, to whom the arch-fiend himself allots
The very essence of a devil's sin,
His rage to ruin, and his craft to win;—
He who to gold perpetual worship gave,
Secret as night, unsated as the grave,
To friendship blind, sharp-sighted to a bribe,
The subtlest artist of the subtle tribe;
Whose deep-affronted avarice combines
With craft, outwitted by its own designs,
Full on that head their utmost rage to shower,
Who spurn'd at tender'd gold and offer'd power;—
He who, by fortune raised, is vain of skill;
Who laughs at right and wrong, at good and ill;
Patron of every art, in every kind,
To unnerve the body, and debase the mind;
Provoked by virtues of the wise and brave,
Of blackest crimes protector, friend, and slave;—
He who with self-importance swells debate,
Whose rancour no revenge can ever sate,
Ravenous for gain, yet loud for common-weal,
With party-madness and invented zeal,

302

With more than lordly haughtiness possess'd,
And proudly prates of honour long deceased!
Eternal, restless enemy to good,
By pride, by sect, by climate, and by blood.
To dark oblivion let the rest be given,
Lost to the world as they are lost to heaven.

When Britain wept for avarice of state,
And threatenings loud alarm'd the guilty great,
Wide and more wide were spread the wretches' moans,
The widows' wailings, and the orphans' groans;
While injured thousands vengeance just require,
Convulsed like Ætna ere it bursts in fire;
What secret art, what Machiavellian hand,
Could turn the torrent no man could withstand?
What spell could universal wrath appease?
Could deep amazement bid their tumult cease?
Unusual objects charm their angry eyes,
Amuse the curious, and perplex the wise?
No!—Let the weight on Atterbury fall,
“Devoted victim to atone for all!”
So (if old tales to illustrate truth presume)
When earth, wide-opening, threaten'd general doom,
Nor prayers nor tears could calm her labouring breast;
Nought but the richest treasure Rome possess'd,
The demon-gods pronounced avoidless fate,
And all Jove's ministers of wrath and state:
In vain their much-loved stores the wealthy bear,
Their arms the brave, their ornaments the fair;

303

A growing sepulchre the gulf exposed,
And not till Curtius plunged, the cavern closed.

But not to death his foes their hate pursued,
Nor stain the blushing earth with hallow'd blood.
For, lo! imperial mercy found the way
To call the bloodhounds from their destined prey.
Soon as the sovereign will their purpose cross'd,
The rage of faction for a space was lost:
The deepest throats their cries for death suspend,
And those who late accused him, now commend.
Unmark'd before, what great endowments rise!
What matchless virtue sparkles to their eyes!
So Satan view'd the parent of mankind,
And felt soft pity melt his stubborn mind.
Unknown remorse his wondering thought employs,
He mourns the Eden that himself destroys.
Awhile the sight his cursed intent removed,
And, had he not betray'd her, he had loved.

What last remains to crown each glorious deed,
Such virtues to reward and to exceed?
What but to meet unmoved the judgment-day,
When all the scenes of nature shall decay?
When penal fire consumes each trembling coast,
And seas, co-eval with the world, are lost;
When discord blends the orders of the sky
In wild confusion: then to lift the eye
Dauntless and firm, 'midst ruins to rejoice,
When Power Divine its own effect destroys;
With gratulations hymn the Almighty's rod,
Strong, not in nature, but in nature's God.

Lord Clarendon.

348

VERSES

WRITTEN UNDER SEVERE DISAPPOINTMENT.

JANUARY 22D, 1732.

354

Oppress'd, O Lord, in thee I trust,
To thee, insulted, flee:
Howe'er in mortals 'tis unjust,
'Tis righteousness in thee.

To God why should the thankless call
His blessings to repeat?
Why should the unthankful-for-the-small
Be trusted with the great?

To thee my soul for mercy flies,
And pardon seeks on high;
For earth,—its mercy I despise,
Its justice I defy.

355

Grant me, O Lord, with holier care,
And worthier thee, to live!
Forgive my foes, and let them dare
The injured to forgive.

Thy grace, in death's decisive hour,
Though undeserved, bestow!
O, then on me thy mercies shower!
And welcome, judgment, now!

379

PSALM XCVIII.

I

In new and lofty songs proclaim
The great, the' unutterable Name;
Ceaseless the glorious theme pursue,
Which still remains for ever new.

II

His actions might the coldest warm
To paint the wonders of his arm,
Whose sacred, whose resistless, hand
Alone the conquest has obtain'd.

III

Salvation on the world bestow'd,
The purchase of the Victor-God,
To wondering millions shall appear
A triumph worthy of the war.

IV

Nor is his truth or mercy shown
To Israel's chosen seed alone:
But, seen by nature's farthest ends,
Wide as the universe extends.

V

Let all in praise their hearts employ,
And shout and tell aloud their joy;
Or, artful, touch the silver lyre;
Or join in psalms the vocal choir.

380

VI

Let warlike cornets loud resound
The joyful jubilee around:
Inspire the trumpet, strike the string;
Adore the God, and hail the King!

VII

Let the' ocean's roaring waves combine
Their thunders to the song to join:
Let earth, while glad her debt she pays,
Teach her inhabitants to praise.

VIII

Ye rivers, clap your hands on high;
In music with the ocean vie!
Ye mountains, leap no more for fear,
But dance for joy! for God is here;

IX

Who comes the injured to relieve,
Who comes the righteous doom to give:
And nations, now afraid no more,
Forgiving Justice shall adore.

X

Let earth, thy footstool,—heaven, thy throne,
Present their endless praise to thee,
Jehovah, true essential One!
Co-equal, co-eternal Three!

381

PSALM XCIII.

I

Thou reignest, Lord, in glory clad;
Power, might, dominion's thine;
In strength magnificent array'd,
And majesty divine.

II

The pendent world, on flitting air
(Unsure foundation) placed,
Upheld by thine almighty care,
With time itself shall last.

III

Ere measured time began to move,
Fix'd was thy glorious throne,
Where, bless'd, thy Godhead sat above,
Eternal and alone.

IV

The sea, by tempests lifted high,
Scarce brooks its ancient shores;
And, proudly swelling to the sky,
Like rolling thunder roars.

V

Strong is the rage of mighty seas;
But stronger nature's Lord;
Who floods can with a word appease,
Created with a word.

382

VI

Steadfast are thy commands, O God;
Firm fix'd thy truth abides.
Fair holiness beseems the' abode
Where the' Holy One resides.

THE SONG OF THE THREE CHILDREN.

384

I

Whate'er God's fiat did from nothing raise,
Stupendous product of the first six days,
O bless your Maker, your Creator praise!
In this let jarring elements agree,
Or make from discord sweetest harmony.

II

Ye sons of light, made by his power divine,
By his reflected beams it is you shine;
Your hallelujahs in the chorus join,
That, far as creatures can, your praise may prove
Great as his power, and endless as his love.

385

III

Praise him, ye heavens, long as your frame shall last,
Who like a curtain spread the azure waste,
And in your happy realms his throne has placed:
His utmost splendour still to you appears;
O tune in praise the music of your spheres.

IV

Waters, that by the' Almighty placed above,
Fix'd as your firmament for ever prove:
Praise him whose Spirit did on the waters move;
Who made you free from winds and storms below;
Whose praise can never ebb, nor ever flow.

386

V

Thrones, potentates, dominions, powers on high,
Acknowledge your Superior in the sky;
And bless the universal Majesty,
Whose word's omnipotent, whose will is fate,
The only powerful, and the only great.

VI

Praise him, O sun! He on the' ethereal throne
Without eclipses has for ever shone,
And gives thee light, and is (like thee) but one.
Praise him, O moon, in borrow'd lustre bright!
In this be fix'd, thou changing queen of night.

387

VII

Ye twinkling stars of light, your praises show:
'Tis he that does your names and numbers know,
Alike inscrutable to all below.
Each star that does to man its beams dispense,
Praise him, as if inspired by some intelligence.

VIII

Praise him, ye gentle and refreshing showers,
Praise him, ye dews; whose pearly moisture pours
Odours and beauties on the vernal flowers.
Who more should choose to' exalt his name than you?
He father is of rain, begetter of the dew.

388

IX

Ye winds, that where you please your sound may send,
In hymns of joy your pious breathings spend;
O praise him without bound, and without end;
Who, with majestic pomp and terror join'd,
Rides charioting on clouds, and walks on wings of wind.

X

Ye flames, exalt the universal choir;
On zeal, bright as yourselves, to God aspire;
God a consuming and a harmless fire:
Whose falling fire Elijah's foes could tame,
Who shone in Moses' bush a lambent flame.

389

XI

Ye winter's chillness, and ye summer's sun,
That round the year in stated periods run,
Praise him in your eternal antiphon;
Who, when the fatal flood of old was past,
Promised, the seasons with the world should last.

XII

Ye honey dews of May, like vapours rise,
Exhaled in praises to your native skies;
And hoary frost, which o'er the meadows lies
Like ashes scatter'd by his bounteous hand,
Restoring vigour to the wearied land.

390

XIII

Praise him, ye frosts, that bind the earth in chains,
Praise him, ye cold, that human force restrains,
Dead'ning the sense, and thrilling in the veins.
His praise by you for ever be extoll'd,
Inflamed with ardours by the' extreme of cold.

XIV

Praise him, O ice, long as the Frozen Sea
In midst of storms enjoys a calm by thee:
And spotless snow, the type of purity;
In all your figured shapes his glory show;
Forget not heaven above, when fall'n on earth below.

XV

Be this your business, ye laborious days,
And silent nights, silver'd with glimmering rays;
Exempt from every work but that of praise.
Whose piercing eye does equal power display
In darkest midnight, and in brightest day:

XVI

Praise him, O light, in heavenly beams array'd;
Parent of day, and first of beings, shade;
Praise him, who reign'd before the world was made;
Who dwells in brightness, and who rides in night,
Majestic darkness, and alluring light.

391

XVII

Ye clouds with sulphur charged, his praise resound,
Louder than thunder in your caverns bound;
Lightnings, that quickly die and, dying, wound,
Ere yet your momentary flash is done,
Praise him, whose lustre can be never gone.

XVIII

Praise him, O earth, whilst thou thyself shalt last;
Thy solid orb, in liquid ether placed,
Though hung on nothing, is for ever fast:
Praise him whose being is sustain'd by none;
Himself is centre of himself alone.

XIX

Ye mounts and hills, crown'd with a pompous load
Of groves, where idols placed their old abode,
Resound the praises of a real God;
Who show'd his goodness, who proclaim'd his will,
On Horeb's mountain, and on Sinai's hill.

XX

Praise him, ye greens, by fruitful nature born,
And rising crops that plenteous vales adorn,
Where zephyrs rustle through the wavy corn;
Who clothes in greater state each springing green
Than that which drew from far the southern queen.

392

XXI

Ye wells and streams, your Source of moisture know,
Who made, when urged of old his power to show,
Forth from the' obedient rock the waters flow.
Nor is the fountain of his praises dry,
But unexhausted stores for ever will supply.

XXII

Ye rivers, bear his praise to every land;
Praise him, ye seas, by whose supreme command
Your greatest rage is bounded by the sand.
No bounds or limits are assign'd you here,
Nor can your utmost forces go too far.

XXIII

Praise him, ye whales, and all the silver train,
That, on the fifth day made, the watery main
Within its spacious bosom does contain:
His praise, ye fish, by you be always sung;
Though mute, to bless your Maker, find a tongue.

XXIV

Praise him, ye fowls, exalt his name, whate'er
Or skims the water, or divides the air,
Who clothes and feeds you with paternal care.
Repeat his praise to every echoing dale,
Ye morning lark, and evening nightingale.

393

XXV

Praise him, ye beasts that shady forests sway,
Who feeds the lions roaring for their prey;
Ye tamer kinds that human force obey,
Present your praise, more grateful to the skies
Than thousands of you slain in sacrifice.

XXVI

Adore, ye sons of men, his awful name;
Though form'd of earth, fill'd with ethereal flame,
Cast in the noblest and the finest frame.
Let lordly man his Sovereign's praise declare,
And beauteous woman bless the truly Fair.

XXVII

Let faithful Abram's race their off'rings bring,
By tuneful David taught his praise to sing
Their Guide, their Legislator, and their King;
Who spread o'er Egypt's land substantial night,
Who with a longer sun did Joshua's faith requite.

XXVIII

Ye priests of God, let praise like incense rise,
Though Corah's sons your order may despise,
And wish the priest himself a sacrifice.

394

Praise him for others too, and thus commend
Your greatest enemies to your only Friend.

XXIX

Praise him, his servants who have learn'd to see,
There's nought so sweet as this captivity,
From whence 'tis greatest bondage to be free.
Praise him, whose power can grant whate'er you move;
Whose ears will hear your prayers, for he is love.

XXX

Ye righteous souls, untainted by your clay,
Spring through the vast expanse, and wing your way,
To reach the confines of eternal day;
Celestial anthems sing, with seraphs join'd;
And souls unbodied, bless the' Almighty Mind.

XXXI

Ye humble men, whom self-admiring pride
With all its baits could never draw aside,
Praise him, whose love does o'er the meek preside,
Who throws the purple tyrants from their seat,
And makes the poor of spirit rich and great.

XXXII

Ye Jewish youths, his wondrous praises tell,
Whose presence could the raging flames repel,
And turn to heaven the punishment of hell:

395

Who o'er submissive fire triumphant trod,
The man assuming, to declare the God.

All glory, praise, dominion, majesty,
Now and for everlasting ages, be
To the essential One, and co-eternal Three!

TO MY SISTER LAMBERT, ON HER MARRIAGE.

I

No fiction fine shall guide my hand,
But artless truth the verse supply,
Which all with ease may understand,
But none be able to deny.

II

Nor, sister, take the care amiss
Which I in giving rules employ,
To point the likeliest way to bliss,
To cause as well as wish you joy.

III

Let love your reason never blind
To dream of Paradise below;
For sorrows will attend mankind,
And pain and weariness and woe:

396

IV

Though still from mutual love relief
In all conditions may be found;
It cures at once the common grief,
It softens the severest wound.

V

Through diligence and honest gain,
In growing plenty may you live;
And each in piety obtain
Repose that riches cannot give.

VI

If children e'er should bless the bed,
O rather let them infants die,
Than live to grieve the hoary head,
And make the aged father sigh!

VII

Still duteous, let them ne'er conspire
To make their parents disagree;
No son be rival to his sire,
Nor daughter more beloved than thee!

VIII

Let them be humble, pious, wise;
Nor higher station seek to know;
Since only those deserve to rise
Who live contented to be low.

397

IX

Firm let the husband's empire stand,
With easy, but unquestion'd, sway;
May he have kindness to command,
And thou the bravery to obey!

X

Long may he give thee comfort! long
As the frail knot of life shall hold;
More than a father, when thou 'rt young;
More than a son, when growing old.

XI

The greatest earthly pleasure try
Allow'd by Providence Divine:
Be he a husband blest as I,
And thou a wife as good as mine!

TO MR. JUSON, ON HIS MARRIAGE.

Tied fast as life the knot of love we see:
My second now at length is worthy me,
Worthy congratulating verse to share,
Join'd with the young, the virtuous, and the fair.
Begin the song! if virtue merits praise,
If youth and beauty may demand the lays,
Or friendship ask; let social joy be shown:
I greet your fortune, while I like my own.

398

Now scenes of bliss your glowing breast employ,
Scenes of long love and ever-during joy.
Now, smiling sweet, the season fair appears
To fix the tenor of your future years.
By wisdom's power bid fleeting pleasure stay
Its course, and make to-morrow like to-day.
But think not here a Paradise to know;
Nor hope perfection; 'tis not found below.
Yet easy days and prosperous may you see,
Place but your rest on love and piety.
No foolish pride your steady mind betray
To taint your peace with arbitrary sway,
Merely for rule your empire to extend,
And, when you gain a vassal, lose a friend:
While sympathetic love her soul inspires
To act, before commanded, your desires;
Well-skill'd in all the offices of life,
A generous mistress and a faithful wife.
If offspring dear the genial bed supply,
O let them rightly live, or quickly die!
Nor children's number nor their want bemoan;
With babes delighted, and content with none.

Above contempt, by dint of virtue rise,
Which only can avoid it or despise.
To friends a cordial welcome still afford,
While hospitable plenty loads the board.
Be pleased to spend, but seldom glad to spare:
If one must pinch for 't, let it be your heir.
By avarice accursed we perish whole:
It pines the body, and it damns the soul.

399

It eats out virtue's substance, nay, its name;
It robs us of our friend, as of our fame.
These truths disguised the fabling ancients tell:—
The same was god of wealth and god of hell.

Bear well in mind, that happiness relies
On our own hearts, and not another's eyes.
It glares not, in brocades and velvets dress'd;
It lurks not poorly in the niggard's chest.
In birthday-balls it scorns a place to hold,
With stars of diamond, and with robes of gold.
'Tis not in pomp, in equipage, in show:
'Tis that which we who find it only know.
'Tis nuptial bliss, which holy vows insure;
Though great, yet calm; and, though transporting, pure;
Which flying years impair not, but improve:
'Tis more than friendship; nay, 'tis more than love!
Such dear delights from friendships never flow'd;
For those are join'd by man, but we by God.

Perhaps, my friend, some wonder you'll express,
I leave out gold in plans of happiness.
My lines on pelf shall no encomium shower,
Nor satire tell you that the grapes are sour.
No single verse in praise of riches flows:
You'll find enough that honour wealth, in prose.
To this mankind unfeign'd submission show;
It always was and always will be so.
One thousand pounds more reverence will inspire
Than softest breathings of the best-strung lyre,
Than all poetic fame from Homer down to Prior.

400

Long may your lives in smoothest current run;
Your aims, your interest, and your souls but one.
No carking thoughts domestic quiet sour
Of fools in private or of knaves in power.
Let tyrant Whigs despotic schemes pursue;
No matter: they be great, and happy you.
No thankless friends your stretch of temper try;
Nor doctors, Dutch or English, make you sigh.
No teasing school your vital spirits drain;
Nor Chancery-suit perplex your busy brain;
Nor distant Beckford vex, nor neighbouring Castlemain.
Long live and love, in mutual faith secure:
Be happy you the rich, as we the poor!

TO MR. BOURNE, ON HIS MARRIAGE.

Ere yet your look'd-for nuptials did appear,
You shunn'd the greeting of a friend sincere.
Accept it now; or must it be my fate
To speak too early and to write too late?
Yet, sure, if joys outlast the honey-moon,
It is not now too late, though then too soon.

Hail, friend! a husband and a master grown,
The house and house's mistress now your own.
Resistless love all stops can overthrow,
And break the barriers of a widow's “No.”
Love, if with wisdom join'd, your days will bless
With long, well-grounded, serious happiness;

401

From usual change preserve your earthly state;
And what at first was fortune, fix to fate.
'Tis true, mankind must bear their share of woe,
Nor perfect Eden can be found below:
But love, the balm of life, there yet remains,
Our joys to heighten and assuage our pains.
Of all pursuits that lure a mortal's eyes,
The gay, the grave, the foolish, and the wise,
Two things alone a just concern can move,
As worth our notice,—piety, and love.
Your first chief care religion's laws embrace;
And love should always hold the second place.

By right divine, by love and prudence sway,
And grant her every reason to obey.
From each vain shadow of resistance free,
O may she still a Tory prove to thee!
Let low-born pairs in storms and thunder meet,
When vulgar scolding shakes the narrow street:
Let the shrill fish-wife ply her nimble tongue,
Or the tough cobbler exercise his thong.
Where mean the conquest, odious is the strife:
A wife to beat is the worst shame in life,—
Except the being beaten by a wife.

If petty jars through human frailty rise,
Avoid objections keen and smart replies.
With reason, not with wit, the cause maintain;
Your words be grave and few, and full and plain.
Still on one single point your view be placed,
Nor raise your present feud by quarrels past;

402

Much less suspicious of the future grow,
Or prophesy unkindly coming woe.
No galling hint departing strife revive:
Let both forget it, and let both forgive.
Poor Eve found favour in her Adam's eyes,
Though by his wife he lost his Paradise:
Else God this lower world in vain had given,
Nor human offspring had re-peopled heaven.

Open, in full proportion to your store,
Your bounteous heart and hospitable door.
Nor e'er to serve your need exactly aim:
'Tis always needful to secure your fame.
Wealth is the means of life, and not the end;
And who deserves it, shares it with his friend.
O may not gold, according to its kind,
Twist round your heart, and grow upon your mind!
Should e'er your soul stoop to so poor a vice,
That paltry crime of Dutchmen, avarice;
To heap up treasure may you then go on,
Wealthy as Harcourt grow, without a son;
Or, Heaven's high wrath more plainly to declare,
Have Walpole's riches, and have Walpole's heir.

Your hopes and fears when children shall employ,
Whom all desire, but few aright enjoy;
Health, more than beauty, bless the rising brood;
Rather than witty, be they wise and good.
Pledges of love O may they ever be,
Nor sow the seeds of household-enmity!
No favourite son so great a darling prove,
His sire to rival in his mother's love:

403

No daughter fair in bloom of beauty rise,
To' outshine her mother in her father's eyes.
May no domestic rebels plead their cause
With tacit compact and with nature's laws;—
As though the British embryo scorn'd to come,
Except by covenant, from his mother's womb;—
Define with nicest art tyrannic sway;
Point out to glorious liberty the way,
How often to resist, how rarely to obey;
Dispute the parent's privilege every hour,
Till their discretion swallows up your power.

Long may you love, in union strict combined
As that whose knot your soul and body join'd;
No time, no chance the dear affection part,
While kindly life-blood flows around the heart;
While new endearments, new desires engage,
And mock the sure approach of coming age.
Marriage that ancient quarrel can remove
Betwixt grave wisdom and ecstatic love:
Honour and interest bind the solemn vow,
And duty warmth and ardour will allow.
Passion itself on reason here relies:
To love is to be blest and to be wise.

TO MR. PEARCE, ON HIS MARRIAGE.

Let me for once my friendly verse employ
To wish a long continuance of your joy,

404

Far as consists with change of earthly state;
Nor teased by small ills, nor assail'd by great!
Break from your chains of form and visit soon,
But life, in all things else, be honey-moon.

And say, my friend, does woman still possess
No place in all your schemes of happiness?
Or have you now by sweet experience known
It was not good for man to be alone?
And sure, if God's authority suffice,
It was not good, no, not in Paradise.

Marriage in Drury-lane the' eternal jest,
To heaven exalted and to hell depress'd;
As fools adore the dreams themselves create,
Or throw their faults on providence or fate.
They more than life can give would fain receive:
This all experience, and yet few believe.
At sixty they discern, with vast surprise,
That none can come at heaven before he dies.
Their vows to meanest ends subservient prove,
And vice or madness takes the form of love,—
The statesman's tool to bring his ends to bear,
The miser's market, and the cully's snare;
By jilts a screen to veil dishonour made,
By fops derided, and by wits betray'd.

Our roving fancies will o'erpaint the truth:
Ill follows good, and age succeeds to youth.
No certain skies our various clime can boast;
We pant in dog-days, and we shake in frost.
No spring with us throughout the year can hold;
But June is hot, and January cold.

405

We see no fairy-groves, poetic bowers,
Laden with ripening fruits and opening flowers.
Alas! no shire in good old England yields
Romantic gardens or enchanted fields.

But what are dreams to you? May you possess
Your utmost share of nuptial happiness!
To which no flaming sword access denies,
And man may taste, though shut from Paradise;
No transports vain, by feverish fancy wrought,
But waking reason and reflecting thought.
Your days be friendly, and serene your nights;
Still in one bed,—though not for fear of sprites.
No sage adviser dash the sweets of life,
By whispering how to break and rule a wife:
No female friend instruct the reins to hold
By curtain-lectures, or by noon-day scold.
Without a third, to please yourselves combine,
And still in all things but in anger join.
With mutual frankness take your common way,
Together serious and together gay.
Be more than friends. When heavenly influence shed
With timely fruit shall bless the genial bed,
Let nurslings dear their mother's arms employ,
And rarely cause a tear, unless of joy;
With prattlings fond your yearning love engage,
But greater transports yield in riper age;
When gladness,—to behold the favourite son,
Or daughter fair, in paths of virtue run,—
Too big for words, the parents' hearts o'erflows,
And pays the father's cares and mother's throes.

406

Each changing scene your happiness improve
With new endearments of your plighted love;
Till grateful you shall own that wedded bliss
Is less, but only less, than Paradise.

As the “Rehearsal's” fiddlers in the cloud,
Though no Coranto, play'd a tune as good;
So these unpolish'd verses sent by me
May pass for truth, if not for poetry;
Wherein at least I this respect have shown,
To write your wedding-song before my own.

LINES ON ROBERT NELSON, ESQ.,

THE AUTHOR OF “A COMPANION TO THE FASTS AND FESTIVALS OF THE CHURCH,” &C.

Shall Nelson, great and good, forgotten lie?
Tomb'd with his dust, shall his remembrance die;
When Christian saints with just and pious care
To future ages he recorded fair,
Whose lives and brighter deaths adorn the calendar?
The same Redeemer's name he gladly bore,
And sought the triumphs they obtain'd before.
The same eternal Dove with sacred fire,
Though not his writings, did his life inspire.

Awake, my lyre! The subject might demand
A Waller's art, a tuneful Prior's hand.

407

Awake! Diviner fame from virtue springs,
Than scarlet war, or sceptred empire, brings
To guilty conquerors or resistless kings;
Fame, nor by flattery paid, nor gain'd by crime,
That dures, superior to devouring time,
While God his purchased church on earth sustains,
While nature runs her course, while heaven itself remains.

What virtues join'd did Nelson's worth complete!
Generous, not proud; without ambition, great;
To others mild, but to himself severe;
Polish'd, though learn'd; and, though well-bred, sincere.
His cheerful goodness wore a constant smile,
Calm as his speech, and easy as his style:
His style as logic clear, and sweet as song;
Though short, yet full; though plain and easy, strong.
The writer most, but all the man, esteem;
For few could write, and fewer live, like him.
His well-weigh'd judgment could avoid extremes
Of formal seemings or enthusiast dreams.
Who made the compound man, demands him whole;
Not thoughtless matter, nor unbodied soul.
To' evince this truth, his pen and life contend,
Nor careless of the way, nor mindless of the end.
He show'd that warmth and sense might well agree
In sober, strong, affecting piety:
Nor e'er should reason and devotion part;
The coolest head suits best the warmest heart.

408

Yet, champion for the truth, he wisely knew
How small a prospect terminates our view;
That infinite no finite comprehends;
That here our faith begins, and reason ends.
Nor dared he rash approach the' Eternal's throne,
The light mysterious of the great Three-One;
Contented not to know what rests to all unknown.
Amazed, the loved disciple turn'd away;
Nor bore the flash of Christ's diviner ray,
On whose incarnate breast, while here on earth, he lay.
Nor to those heights can brightest seraphs rise,
But veil with humbled wing their dazzled eyes.
Such doctrines Nelson fear'd not to commend,
With strength to prove, with temper to defend.
He strove for truth; nor sought, yet gain'd, applause:
His candour praise, if not conviction, draws;
Far as a mortal can, deserving of his cause.
For, zeal and moderation well agree,
And constant firmness hurts not charity.

Whate'er to God belong'd, with homage due
And reverential joy, his eyes would view.
He taught in praise to spend the sabbath blest,
The means and emblem of eternal rest:
Frequent to take the mystic bread and wine;
To' adore the substance, nor neglect the sign:
Those to revere whom Power Divine shall please
To' intrust with keeping of the sacred keys;

409

Though fools their pastors' lives with rigour scan,
And prize the office as they like the man.
What shining virtues in the priest appear,
Their gracious condescension may revere:
But if a Judas heavenly tidings tells,
Their hate for sin preserves them infidels.
Wits may desertless preachers scorn secure:
“Christ ne'er could send ambassadors impure.”
But Nelson wise such empty scoffs disdain'd,
Since weakness proves not the commission feign'd.
Cause for respect he could in priesthood find;
Yet, deep his learning, and enlarged his mind,
Nor paid implicit faith, nor show'd obedience blind.

Nelson, illustrious saint, appears no more:
Be grieved, ye virtuous! and lament, ye poor!
He ne'er unaided could his Saviour see
With sickness press'd, in chains or penury.
Whene'er the suppliant wretch for pity moved,
His Maker's face he saw, and, seeing, loved;
And sought to lighten or remove the chains,
Assuage the griefs, and mitigate the pains.
Learn hence, ye worldly great, 'tis more renown
To feed a prisoner than to storm a town!
Yet farther love has Nelson frequent shown,
Nor to the body's good confined alone;
Instructing all to fix their hopes on high,
Resign'd to live, and innocent to die.
'Tis kind, redressing harm the' afflicted feels;
But kinder far, preventing future ills.

410

On infant heads, behold, his bounty flows,
Preserved from guilt and sure-attending woes;
Their manners form'd aright with early care,
Ere blasted yet their bloom with tainted air.
'Tis this must stop the' infection of our crimes,
And lay foundations for succeeding times.
For this to God are solemn praises given,
And crowds of orphans send their songs to heaven.
O glorious alms! O goodness well-design'd!
To feed the body, and to save the mind!
Our Saviour, gracious, gave his hearers bread,
His sermons teaching whom his wonders fed.

How far diffused is charity discreet!
How vast the' advantage to be good and great!
How godlike may the rich their blessings shower,
Whene'er their will is equal to their power!
How wide their power to benefit mankind!
Who mercy never give, shall never find.
Nelson on schemes of good employ'd his thought,
And living practised what he dying taught.
What heat divine his latest counsel breathes!
He leaves his art, but not his soul bequeaths.
Let this, you mighty, your ambition be,—
To' improve the well-directed legacy.
So shall his death, like Samson's, profit more
Than even his useful, glorious life before;
Who still his dear Redeemer's footsteps trod,
And traced the exemplar of the Saviour-God.
Jesus, the God, the perfect pattern gave,
Who lived to teach us, and who died to save.

411

Be mute, my lyre! let Nelson's fame command
A sweeter voice and more harmonious hand;
In juster light his virtues to display,
And praise deserved, not guilty worship, pay.
We hail not saints with impious rites divine,
Nor kneel to relics, nor adore a shrine:
The dust lies mouldering, and the soul is fled:
To' improve the living, we revere the dead.
Since, to diffuse the good, the good we show,
Receive, bright saint, the praises we bestow;
Though to the blest above there needs not fame below;
Nor can a mortal's voice his glory raise
Whom guardian angels greet with joyous lays,
Whom at the judgment-bar the' all-knowing Word shall praise.

ON DR. MIDDLETON.

------ Fragili quærens illidere dentem,
Offendet solido.
—Horatii Serm. lib. ii. sat. i. 77.

The Tories long have claim'd it as their pride,
That unbelief still sought the adverse side:
No Blount, no Tindal, on their part declares:
No stiff, pert, empty Shaftesbury is theirs;
No Whiston, that deposes Christ alone;
No Chubb, that God the Father dares dethrone;

412

No Locke, embodying God in warm debates,
Who spirit from the world annihilates,
Whose pen identity so nicely draws
It makes the' effect the source of its own cause.
Ye Tories, your peculiar pride is gone:
Your party has produced a Middleton;
Full of himself, and other men despising,
His small theology too highly prizing,
Pertly dogmatic against dogmatizing.

But he, good man! disclaims all bad designs;
Mere slanders these of orthodox divines.
He only raises errors long forgot,
And searches every corner for a blot;
Objections often-answer'd calls to light,
And sets exploded blasphemies in sight;
Points out to ready infidels their way,
And conjures demons up he does not lay;
Bids rabbies witnesses for truth arise,
Exceeding monks in nonsense and in lies;
Bids Pagans Doctors in our schools proceed,
And teach the Christians to explain their Creed;
Scoffs at the fall which God's first vengeance drew,
And, by sure sequel, at redemption too;
And sees, in books his wit has long admired,
Moses a cheat, and scripture uninspired.
This usage, if revived on earth's vain stage,
Might tempt the meekest of mankind to rage,
Ruffle the calm by heaven so justly prized,
And make him once again be unadvised.

413

If ancient Jews were stubborn rightly thought,
Who slighted miracles by Moses wrought;
What, then, our lively writer shall we call,
Who doubts his mission, and yet owns them all?
Or seems to own, and disbelieves them still?
A sad alternative of wretched ill!

But every page displays before our sight
How deep his learning, and his wit how bright:
And his whole life, he makes us understand,
He leads as well as Pearce or Waterland;
As if for virtue more than Clarke extoll'd,
Or stricter than Pelagius was of old;
As if he nobler parts or learning show'd,
Than drew Apollinaris from his God!
O foolish boast, that balks the wish'd-for end!
O crime, that turn'd an angel to a fiend!
As though his doughty pamphlets first began
From sneaking envy to superior Dan!
Suppose him wrong, what Christian priest would send
Such keen reproaches as a seeming friend?
A life in service of religion worn
Deserves our gratitude, and not our scorn.
For this some fair professions, thinly sown,
Some cold, unwilling compliments, atone.
E'en frantic Woolston, using Jesu's name,
Seeks out for fig-leaves to conceal his shame;

414

And, while he antiquated lies explores,
In fact blasphemes him, but in word adores.

Is this the way a lasting fame to raise?
Is his best honour but a sceptic's praise?
How vain the' attempt! True glory is denied
To Bentley's reading, join'd with Bentley's pride.
One only path remains to real fame,—
With retractation full to print his name,
With glad repentance and with glorious shame.
But if he still persists with haughty mind,
Stiff in his doubt, and by his wisdom blind;
May Israelites indeed his guilt resent,
And drive the' infectious leper from their tent!
Let him, his honest name condemn'd to lose,
Go seek new friends, and fitter patrons choose,
Whose height derives a lustre on their voice:—
The age affords him plenty for his choice.
Let him go boast of diligence mis-spent,
In Puritanic taunts his malice vent,
And difficulties urge, and paint discouragement.
Let him to Hoadly, friend of Clarke, repair,
And gain applauses and preferments there.
Or if a layman's friendship more he likes,
As faithless Collins had his moral Sykes,
So, Gordon, that his fame complete may be,
Let him be father-confessor to thee.

415

MELISSA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN.

If, friend, a wife you mean to wed,
Worthy of your board and bed,
That she be virtuous, be your care,
Not too rich, and not too fair:
One who nor labours to display
New complexions every day,
Nor, studying artificial grace,
Out of boxes culls a face.

416

Nor live-long hours for dressing spares,
Placing, to displace, her hairs,
And straight replace; an idle pin
Ten times shifting out and in.
Nor daily varies, vainly nice,
Thrice her silks, and colours thrice:
Fond o'er and o'er her suits to range,
Changing still, and still to change.
Nor gads to pay, with busy air,
Trifling visits here and there;
Long rapping at each door aloud,
Nuisance to a neighbourhood.
If e'er a play she deign to see,
(Very rarely shall it be,)
She likes not wit in lewdness shown,
Jests ill-manner'd for a clown;

417

But hears, with ignorance or rage,
Double meanings of the stage.
Her spotless mind the lustful tale
Nauseates in the nicest veil.
She ne'er is found in crowds unclean,
Enter'd mysteries obscene;
Nor seeks, in mask and antic dress,
Unconfined lasciviousness:
Nor, pale and angry, gaming high,
Rattles the unlucky die;
Till sun-rise restless vigils keeps,
Light consuming in her sleeps;
Inverting nature, turns with play
Day to night, and night to day.
This round of follies let her choose
Flitting life who likes to lose,

418

And lets her quickly-ending days
Pass, and perish as they pass.
The time that vulgar maids despise,
Careless, thoughtless, how it flies,
Melissa, wise, esteems, and knows
Well to use it ere it goes.
If e'er Melissa wed my friend,
With her entering shall attend
Virtues and Graces by her side,
Bride-maids fit for such a bride:—
Neat Beauty, without art display'd;
Rosy Health with native red;
With her bright Innocence shall go,
Purer than the falling snow:
Quiet, that far from quarrels flies;
Mirth and Pleasure, Love and Joys:

419

Firm Faith, that plighted promise keeps,
Silence, watching o'er her lips:
Prudence, that ponders all events,
Wealth-increasing Diligence:
Religion, mindful what is owed
To herself and to her God:
Patient to bear, to pardon free,
Loveliest grace, Humanity,
If erring nature chance to fail,
Feeble, inadvertent, frail;
Who hates low-whisper'd spite conceal'd,
Scandal yet to few reveal'd;
Since envy makes, with rumour'd lies,
Friends and brethren enemies.
Good-breeding shall her handmaid be,
Join'd with chaste-look'd Modesty;

420

While open heart, and hand, and face,
Hospitality displays.
If e'er Melissa grace your home,
These attendants with her come.
Whate'er can good or ill befall,
Faithful partner she of all:
Whose wisdom, teaching well to bear,
Soothes the bitterness of care;
Whose joy, if prosperous fate you meet,
Adds new sweetness to the sweet.
These ties will nuptial love engage,
Down from youth to hoary age,
If e'er Melissa, lovely spouse!
Life's companion! crown your vows.
Such, such a consort choose to wed,
Worthy of your board and bed.

421

WROOTE: A HEROIC POEM.

HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO MISS MEHETABEL WESLEY.

I

How, sister, can you silent lie
When epic subject is so nigh?
What can the matter be? I'll try
At least by guess to nick ye.
Is it for losing Epworth's view,
Or parting with some lover new,
Or pining after sister Sue
Or favourite brother Dicky?

422

II

For shame! now tune your warbling string,
As poets speak; essay to sing
Of Wroote, till all the levels ring,
Pleased with a theme so pretty;
Than Sandhole more,—I'll tell you that,—
Or Pat, or Poll, or Snip the cat,
Or lovers' and long-saddles' chat,
Deserving of your ditty.

III

Why, Hetty, is your heart, then, grown
(Perhaps thus Thorndike used to moan)
As cold as any marble stone?
Or are you turn'd a Stoic?
Fancy to me the truth supplies;
And Wroote now stands before mine eyes!
See, all the images arise,
And crowd to song heroic!

IV

The spacious glebe around the house
Affords full pasture to the cows,
Whence largely milky nectar flows;
O sweet and cleanly dairy!
Unless or Moll or Nan or you
Your duty should neglect to do;
And then 'ware haunches black and blue
By pinching of a fairy.

423

V

The house is good, if tight and clean;
Though there no battlements are seen,
But humble roof of thatch, I ween,
Low rooms from rain to cover;
Where, safe from famine, sorest ill,
Folks may live happy, if they will,
As any that St. James's fill,
The' Escurial, or the Louvre.

VI

A great dog came with you, I trow;
As famous Tobit, well we know,
Would that his cur should with him go
Where'er he meant to wander;
And faithful dogs, some two or three,
The guards of princes used to be;
In Dryden's Virgil you may see
The good old king Evander.

VII

Kittens and whelps, a friendly fry,
Peaceful in chimney-corner lie,
When cheap-bought fuel, heap'd up high,
Makes warm the winter-weather.
No fear of brawls of this and that
'Twixt Hetty sharp and envied Pat:
Can sisters jar, when dog and cat
Agree so well together?

424

VIII

What certain happiness is thine,
When all things for your good combine!
If you now, while the sun shall shine,
Take care your hay to gather;
And aim still at improving more
The newly-got domestic store,
Which never eye has seen before,
Belonging to my father.

IX

For every now and then, Fame sings,
Glad plenty to your table brings
Boil'd veal and bacon, food for kings,
Too good for low-born sinner!
Choose you to see the lambkins bleat,
And nibble, innocent, their meat?
Or else their legs and loins to eat,
Luxurious, for your dinner?

X

No fear that wolves should steal your ewes,
If erst, as tells old Spenser's muse,
A king did by a tax reduce
Their numerous herds to nothing.
The gentle swains may now go sleep
That use four-footed flocks to keep:
No danger but to two-legg'd sheep
From wolves in shepherds' clothing.

425

XI

Observe the warm, well-litter'd sty,
Where sows and pigs and porkets lie:
Nancy or you the draff supply;
They swill, and care not whether.
And much good do the pretty swine:
Secure from penury and pine,
They never out of humour whine
Except in windy weather.

XII

Are, sister, you that happy one
That marks the gosling's yellow down,
And noddling of its simple crown,
When duly food you scatter?
Who hears the little ducklings quack,
When, waddling at each other's back,
Races they run, a crumb to take
That's thrown into the water?

XIII

What raptures must possess you, when
Your eyes behold the mother-hen,
Or shut within her evening-pen,
Or scraping in the muck-hill!
Her callow chicks around her stray,
And chirp, and peck, and flutter: they,
Duteous, though bob-tail, scour away
At hearing of her chuckle;

426

XIV

Glad of the warmth from whence they had
Their life at first; but not so glad
As you to wait upon your dad!
O, 'tis exceeding pretty!
Methinks I see you striving all
Who first shall answer to his call,
Or lusty Nan or feeble Moll,
Sage Pat or sober Hetty;

XV

To rub his cassock's draggled tail,
Or reach his hat from off the nail,
Or seek the key to draw his ale,
When damsel haps to steal it;
To burn his pipe, or mend his clothes,
Or nicely darn his russet hose,
For comfort of his aged toes,
So fine they cannot feel it.

XVI

Do you not each one do her part,
With utmost duty, care, and art,
To cheer the cockles of his heart,
As knowing, “Now or never?”
And say?—sufficient sums to get
For former and for latter debt,
And portions then for Moll and Het,—
“O father, live for ever!”

427

XVII

What happiness, then, to be driven
Where power of saving may be given!
To hope for unmolested heaven,
While here on earth, too soon is.
But this I'm sure,—that, if you're wise,
Wroote is the seat of Paradise,
As much as any place that lies
On earth beneath the moon is.

XVIII

'Tis true, no fairy-lands are there,
Nor spring to flourish all the year,
Or bushes that perfumes will bear,
Flowers, fruits together springing;
Where Phœbus with perpetual beams
Glitters from gently-gliding streams,
And nymphs are lull'd to pleasing dreams
By Philomela singing:

XIX

No scenes of feign'd Elysian plains
Smile sweet; nor learn'd Arcadian swains
Your lovers are, with magic strains
And vocal harp to win ye.
Yet, if from want secure, at Wroote
Contented you may live, no doubt,
Unless or Geoffrey is without,
Or else the devil in ye.

The name which they gave to the spirit that disturbed them at Epworth.

428

TO JAMES OGLETHORPE, ESQ.

Dear Friend, though now far from St. Stephen's walls
You range, nor Acton for your presence calls;
Your mind, I doubt not, on some good is bent,
Your heart still ardent, and your head intent.
Your life, I know, admits no idle time,
No vacant spaces, to be filled with rhyme.
But neither is my life of business void:
Each day, each hour, each moment is employ'd.
So only tell me if my verse you slight;
For if you will not read, I will not write.

'Tis probable, as curious people use
When out of London, you'll inquire for news.
Strange news of one squire O--- I hear,
Which he himself, though not his friends, can bear;
Told by a man of wealth and man of fire,
Who would be Justice, and who is Esquire;
Eye- and ear-witness, evidence not weak;
Who knows his person, and has heard him speak.
This gallant flatly durst affirm and swear,
('Twas well the Norfolk colonel was not there,)
“That the aforesaid Member fierce and thin
The whole last sessions has distracted been
As any out of Bedlam, nay, or in.”
A second tale came from a lawyer shrewd,
And bore, I own, some show of likelihood:—

429

“That garters he despised, both red and blue;”
(I wish the green were of the number too;)
“And that his rage, if once it overflows,
Careless and fearless whosoe'er oppose,
Would pull the pink of knighthood by the nose.”

But now, my verse, at higher subjects aim;
From private whisper rise to public fame:
Fame which the consort's honour has enroll'd;
Myself am witness it was gravely told:
Fame which your just resentment may engage,
And make you, though not mad, yet in a rage.
Though freeing prisoners from their tyrants' hand
Meets with unenvied praises through the land,
Yet artful faction colours false applies,
And dashes truth with ever-mingled lies.
“The Commons' House their hate of villains show,—
As far as partial judges let it go.
The gaols are oped, spite of opposing powers:
No thanks to Hughes or Oglethorpe or Towers!
The deed shall bright through future ages shine,
The' immortal deed of good queen Caroline!”
Thrice happy queen! how certain of renown.
'Tis glorious to be married to a crown!
To which, we own, this privilege does belong,—
That those who wear it never can do wrong.
But, sure, 't would ruin all our virtue quite,
If those who wear it not, could do no right.

From patriots loved, and princes praised by all,
(A strange transition!) to myself I fall:

430

As wild a stretch of fancy see display'd
As ere the dithyrambic poet made.
Me now intent on verse you scarce shall see,
Labouring and murmuring like a humming-bee.
My business, too, almost aside is thrown,
And for my father's work I leave my own.
I read his papers with observing eyes,
Commanded to erase and to revise.
Not bound by time or place, I range the globe,
Discourse with patriarchs, and converse with Job.
Far-distant Eastern realms employ my thought,
Where Nimrod hunted, and where Nimrod fought;
Where brave Semiramis display'd her pride,
Where Joktan planted, and where Esau died;
Where evil gods were served with rites profane,
And Arabs raised the great leviathan;
Where conquering swords and politicians' care
Establish'd kingdoms which are now but air;
Where ancient empires, once extoll'd by fame,
Have lost the poor existence of a name.
In fancy unconfined abroad I roam,
Still mindful of my father here at home.

A rhyming letter to a richer friend
Will, howsoe'er begun, with begging end.
Subscriptions for a father much distress'd
Entreat your utmost vote and interest.
Let wonted humane sentiments prevail:
'Tis yours to save the needy from a gaol.
If e'er your generous breast with pity glow'd,
And schemes for private and for public good;

431

If e'er a parent you desired to see,
And felt the throes of filial piety;
If faithful plainness e'er I used to you,
True to your fame, and to your virtue true;
If aught that friendship and regard might draw
In me you ever saw, or thought you saw;
In this one instance be it fully shown;
Preserve the father, and o'erpay the son!

UPON BISHOP ATTERBURY'S BIRTH-DAY.

I

What morn with more auspicious ray.
Or lovelier dawning ever shined?
Be blest the memorable day
Which gave thee, father, to mankind!
In each hard trial fully shown
Good, wise, and great as Clarendon.

432

II

Tempests and storms in vain attack;
In vain thy foes their arts employ:
Nought thy well-grounded faith can shake,
Thine exemplary zeal destroy.
Nor storms nor tempests can avail:
The rock 'tis built on cannot fail.

III

Thee nor the' opposing world could fright,
Nor humblest fraud or fawning bend,
To shrink from aiding injured right,
To cease the helpless to befriend.
Nor mitres rich, nor exile near,
Could bribe to hope, or sink to fear.

IV

Superior to the ills you feel,
Triumphant sufferer, well you know
To scorn the instruments that deal,
To' adore the Hand that aims, the blow;
Like Job, with patience to resign:
O might his latter end be thine!

V

Mean-season, live! Nor barbarous foes
Nor exile grievous to sustain,
Nor prospect of thy country's woes,
Nor tortures of afflicting pain,
Force thee to mourn thy longer stay,
Nor cause thee to regret to-day!

433

VI

No; let the statesman, human fiend!
The ruffian base, in murder old,
The vile betrayer of his friend,
The seller of his God for gold,
The false, the traitor, the forsworn,
Bewail the day that they were born!

VII

Enjoy the peace they cannot find,
No more than they can take away.
Thy happy birth with equal mind
View calmly as thy dying day;
That second birth-day, happier far,
Which clears thee at the last great bar!

THE BLACKBIRD.

To whom does grateful verse belong?
Who but the Blackbird claims my song?
When all the natives of the grove
Yielded obeisance to the Dove,
How cheerful on the green-wood spray
He warbled through the live-long day!
His music gladden'd every hill;
All but Canary-birds were still.
The Finches, a melodious throng,
Would sometimes listen to his song;
And, pleased with his harmonious lays,
Though seldom imitate, would praise.

434

Now foes inhuman pluck his wing,
And cage him, that he should not sing,
Nor chant his native wood-notes free,
But lose the thoughts of liberty.

Say, shall recording verse disclose
The names and natures of his foes?
The boding Screech-owl, prophet sad;
The Vulture, feeder on the dead;
The Harpy, ravenous and impure;
The Hawk, obsequious to the lure;
The noisy, senseless, chattering Pie,
The mere Lord William of the sky.
Nor shall the Bat unmention'd be:
A mongrel, twilight trimmer he.
When empire is on Fowls conferr'd,
He claps his wings, and is a bird.
When stronger Beasts the conquest get,
He lights and walks upon four feet,
With crafty flight and subtle pace,
Still safe without an Act of Grace.

The Kite fit gaoler must be named,
In prose and verse already famed;
Bold to kill mice, and now and then
To steal a chicken from a hen;
None readier was, when seized, to slay,
And after to dissect, his prey;
With all the insolence can rise
From power when join'd to cowardice.
The captive Blackbird kept his cheer:
The gaoler anxious shook with fear,

435

Lest roguy traitors should conspire
To' unbolt the door, or break the wire;
Traitors, if they but silence broke,
And disaffected, if they look.
For, by himself he judged, his prey,
If once let loose, would fly away.
Conscious of weakness when alone,
He dares not trust him, one to one.
So, every day and every hour,
He shows his caution and his power.
Each water-drop he close inspects,
And every single seed dissects;
Nay, swears, with a suspicious rage,
He'll shut the air out of the cage.
The Blackbird with a look replies,
That flash'd majestic from his eyes.
Not sprung of eagle-brood, the Kite
Falls prostrate, grovelling, at the sight.
A hero thus, with awful air,
(If birds with heroes may compare,)
A ruffian greatly could dismay:
“Man, darest thou Caius Marius slay?”
Blasted the coward-wretch remains,
And owns the Roman, though in chains.

“Tell Dr. Arbuthnot,” says Pope in a letter to Gay, “that even pigeon-pies and hogs'-puddings are thought dangerous by our governors: for, those that have been sent to the bishop of Rochester are opened and profanely pried into at the Tower. It is the first time that dead pigeons have been suspected of carrying intelligence.”

See Plutarch, Life of Marius.

436

ON BISHOP ATTERBURY'S ROASTING LORD CONINGSBY

ON THE TOPIC OF BEING PRIEST-RIDDEN.

An ass, well drubb'd with sturdy oak,
Once on a time complaining spoke,
Rebuking prophet mounted high,
That still laid on, yet scarce knew why.

Of this in memory, of late,
A lordly ass, in warm debate,
Began to open wide; when proph.
(For brevity-and rhyme-sake Roff.)
On the dull creature got astride,
And spurr'd, and gall'd, and bang'd his side.

Each ass then served by way of pad:
One Balaam rode, one Francis dad.
They both did speak, and both were beat;
Yet still this differ did from that:
For that was smote before speech made,
But this just after what he said;
From whence best judges do maintain,
That ass spoke better of the twain.

O Coningsby! learn wisdom hence,
And give the prophets no offence;
For Levi's tribe best know the art
How to make Issachars to smart.

An allusion to Balaam and his ass.

This was in a debate on the Test Act.

460

ELEGIAC VERSES.

HORACE, BOOK I. ODE 24.

I.

Freely to grief indulge the reins:
In mourning for a friend so dear
What bounds are placed? what weakness can appear?
Begin, Melpomene, the mournful strains;
The Muse to whom thy sovereign sire
A silver voice vouchsafes, and sadly pleasing lyre.

461

II.

And must an endless sleep his eyelids bind?
Where shall the Virtues now his equal find?
Whither for shelter shall repair
Firm Faith, Astræa's near ally,
And Truth, without adorning, fair,
And unaffected Modesty?

III.

He fell lamented and deplored by all;
And most, O bard divine, by thee;
Who, vainly pious, on the gods dost call
Thy friend from death's embrace to free,
To' unbind the fix'd decrees of changeless destiny.

IV.

Could thee the Muse with sweeter sounds inspire
Than flow'd from Thracian Orpheus' magic lyre,
When savages around did throng,
And forests listen to his song;
Thou couldst not to the lifeless warmth restore,
That image of a man could breathe no more.

V.

When once on earth we cease to live,
Led to the shades by Hermes' rod,
No prayers can purchase a reprieve,
Or soften the relentless god.
What, then, but patience does remain?
That sole relief of each avoidless pain:
Since what is past is past, 'tis fruitless to complain.

462

VERSES UPON MR. BEAR'S CAT,

CALLED ROGER ROKIN.

I mean my doggerel for a token
Of due respect to Roger Rokin;
And eke, as the poetic phrase is,
In verse to' immortalize his praises.

But here my stubborn wit refuses
To beg assistance from the Muses;
Because 't has long been known by many,
There never were nor will be any.
Yet, not to' offend against the fashion,
That still insists on invocation,
I thus go on, in form proceeding
To boast my parts and show my reading.

Thou four-legg'd god, in former ages
Adored by wise Egyptian sages,
(Who deepest learning well express'd
By painted shapes of bird and beast,
Whose secret meaning all the while was
As secret as the head of Nile was,)
Thou four-legg'd deity, a cat,
Assist a rhymer desperate:
For rhyme thine influence will go fur in,
Since verses often spring from purring.
But if, like Apis, thou 'rt deceased,
And thy nine lives are gone and past,
I'll even—with reverence be it spoken—
Fill up thy place with Roger Rokin;

463

Whose worth and usefulness and beauty
As well deserve religious duty,
As e'er did animal of Nile,
From humblest rat to crocodile.

First, with his beauty we begin:
As soft as Negro's is his skin.
Of darkest tabby are his hairs,
Becoming gravity and years;
Which yet so bright has Nature made,
They cast a lustre in the shade,
Whence truer sparks of light arise
Than e'er were shot from ladies' eyes.
Much less can ladies' eyes exceed
Those eyes that shine in Roger's head.
At night compare them,—though they say
“At night” that “every cat is grey:”
Your women's twinklers then are gone,
And disappear like Bristol-stone;
While his are eminently bright,
Like truest diamonds, in the night.

Mustachios large his mouth environ
That need no crisping curling-iron:
No Spanish Don can equal be
In whiskers or in gravity.
His stiff, fair eyes are open, but
His mouth is almost always shut.
Roger that piece of wisdom prizes
Which old philosopher advises;
True way to wisdom still appearing,—
Tardy of speech and quick of hearing.

464

Yet when he pleases to be jolly,
And shake off form and melancholy,
You'd think his whole employ and calling
Was nought but mirth and caterwauling;
Though in the midst of all his glee
He keeps a wondrous majesty.
Gracious he stretches out his paw,
And pulls-in close his harmless claw:
A pattern for the town and court,
To do no mischief in their sport.
To human mouth he gives his phiz,
And to the dogs his breech, to kiss:
The pink of courtesy all o'er;
'Tis all his skin; what would you more?

And here we would discourse concerning
His reading books, if not his learning.
Obedient to his master's call,
As much in study as in hall,
Whole hours he sits, nor even stirs,
Nor mews, nor scarce so much as purs:
For Greek and Arabic as well
As plainest English he can spell;
And grave and wise the leaves he looks on
As any nobleman of Oxon.

Ye heavenly brace of dogs, make room!
Let worthy Rokin thither come.
He will not spit nor quarrel, seeing
With Lion here so well agreeing.

465

And, sure, a cat is fitter far
Than e'er was dog to be a star;
The verdant lustre of whose eyes
Like stars at night can gild the skies.

O would the man whose words did promise
To pay due glory to Sir Thomas,
Once more employ his tongue well-spoken,
And rise to honour Roger Rokin;
Then should this cat in fame be greater
Than Puss, the darling of Spectator.

The mastiff.

A LETTER TO A FRIEND

WHO CAME TO THANK ME FOR HIS HAVING GOT PREFERMENT.

Though better work I have to do
Than rhyming on your friends and you,
Dear Hab, for once I will employ
An hour at least to wish you joy;
Nor can I such a Heathen prove
As not to give you love for love.
I joy to see your growing store,
Because, imprimis, you are poor;
And, next, because it makes me sneer
To see what merit they prefer;
And, lastly, 'cause, without all doubt,
Your being in keeps some one out.

No help I to your rising lent
By precept or by precedent

466

To me you therefore nothing owe
For what you are or what you do.
'Twas want of friends and want of pence,
'Twas all-performing confidence,
Courage to press in every place,
A changing and unchanging face,
A ready tongue and supple knee:—
Thank these, instead of thanking me.

For me, I'd rather labour on,
Than turn to rise as you have done.
Who would not poor and friendless be,
And doom'd for life to A, B, C,
Rather than give the least consent
To standing arms and Parliament?
Than swear to plots that no man sees,
And bawl for “pains and penalties?”
Than Britain's liberty o'erthrow
And Magna Charta at a blow?
Than with soft smiles and favour view
All sorts of worship but the true?
Than cease these evils to gainsay,
And seem a rascal,—for a day?
Than worship Satan for his power,
And join with Simon,—for an hour?
When me you thus tranform'd shall see,
Then is your time for thanking me.

Or if, by ills you have endured,
Your Mercury should e'er be cured;
If, saved from creditors and need,
Instead of writing, you should read,

467

And sense of ancient Fathers seek
In their own Latin or in Greek;
If e'er your changes you should mourn,
And from your turning should return;
If e'er severely you compare
The life you lead and gown you wear;
And then, as far as lies in you,
The past recall, and done undo;
If e'er you follow my advice,
And grow by true repentance wise:—
If e'er that happy day you see,
Then is your time for thanking me.

Note, this is not my spouse's wit:
She knows not of my writing it.
Nor care I who may read my verse,
Except they be decipherers.
For those, if hired for such a job,
Might swear that “Satan” is Sir Bob;
Since 'tis beyond disputing clear,
S is the letter next to R.
Conclusions follow as they please,
No matter for the premisses.

TO MR. FITZGERALD, UPON HIS MARRIAGE.

At length the long-weigh'd doubt is fairly past
And vows are plighted that with life must last,
That passion into reason can improve,
And clip the wanton wings of flying love;

468

Whence timely bliss in every season flows,
In youth our transport, in our age repose.

A scene unknown before disclosed you find,
New-launch'd into the world of womankind;
Woman, the cully's hate, the coxcomb's scorn,
Made to preserve our race and to adorn.
Immortal souls inform their softer frame;
Their passions like, their faculties the same.
Kindness and worth their just affections move;
As firm their friendship, and as warm their love.
From reason deep as ours their acts proceed:
Pleased they will smile, and wounded they will bleed.
Nor smallest difference there betwixt us lies,
But what from different stations must arise.
View them where most their conduct we deride,—
The jilt's hypocrisy and beauty's pride,
The haughty grandeur of a flatter'd fair,
The turns and doublings of a hunted hare;
These faults, perhaps, are feminine:—but stay,
And mark the prosperous statesman for a day:
His saucy frown and cringing sneer attend,
When he insults the foe, and cheats the friend:
Soon, with John Dryden, you'll acknowledge then
That deep dissembling has a place in men;
And own that female pride must quit the field,
And Parthenissa to Sir Robert yield.

Though wedding-songs have almost drain'd my store,
That scarcely can I find one lesson more;

469

Yet something still I must repeat to you;
And though the sense is old, the dress is new.
By strictest reason love should govern'd be,
As well as law, or arms, or policy.
Needs there an artist in his business skill'd,
The slightest skiff or meanest cot to build?
And must we, then, to chance or humour owe
Our love,—the greatest happiness below;
Hardly regain'd when lost, but kept with ease?
Desire of pleasing seldom fails to please.
Rather than give the dear one cause to grieve,
A friend, a brother, nay, a parent, leave.
'Tis well if two for life-time can agree:
None e'er should marry to a family.

Who gaily laugh at caution and at rules,
Oft find by dear experience they were fools.
A man who first in heat of transport cried
He scarce could live a week without his bride,
Grows cool; and if the father would but take
The wife alone, without the portion, back,
Would glad restore her ere the year and day,—
The time the law allows us for a stray.
But you, no doubt, despise these idle dreams,
Who prudence love, and are a friend to schemes.
And where can mortals better show their skill,
Than in protecting love from fear of ill?

Many are arm'd 'gainst fate's severest blows,
Whom every petty cross can discompose.
Each day our life must little evils meet:
Who knows not how to bear them, makes them great.

470

'Tis no advantage to the cure at all,—
If deep the wound be,—that the sword was small.
'Tis always want of temper or of sense,
To start impatient of impertinence.
Shall I be out of humour, vex'd, and dull,
As oft as coxcombs please to play the fool?
What man alive on earth can folly shun,
When all is folly that's beneath the sun?
No fits of peevishness your bosom seize,
Nor gusts of whimsies interrupt your peace.
With eagerness for trifles to engage,
Is not a woman's, but an infant's, rage.
So, thwarted by his nurse, the wayward boy
Will scold, and scratch, and whimper for a toy.

Business unsought has made my pen too slow,
As business often is to love a foe:
Though still I finish this my friendly lay
Ere quite the sun brings round your marriage-day;
Nor yet too late my verses will appear,
If honey-moon can last throughout the year.
May wisdom's power make it endure for life,
And choke the rising seeds of infant strife!
No more in haste to sing your wedding I,
Than you to wed; though wiser 'tis to try,
(If aught I understand the nuptial state,)
A year too early, than a day too late.

471

A LETTER TO MR. KILNER ON HIS MARRIAGE.

Dear Jemmy, (if with patience you can bear
Any but one alone to call you “dear,”)
Now fast as life the knot of love is tied,
The virgin-widow is once more a bride;
Permit a friend his social joy to show,
One who is sped like you,—or would be so.

Long may you both promote each other's bliss,
Receiving and returning happiness;
Secure from great, dispense with little, flaws,
Still keeping anger for a weightier cause;
Both worthy of belief and both believed,
And undeceiving each and undeceived;
From every art and all dissembling free,
And thirst of domineering sovereignty!
Nor let your rest on friends' opinion stand;
But scorn a happiness at second-hand;
Who must, whate'er to others may appear,
Be blest in what you find, not what you hear;
While either part the other's good intends,
Forgetting man and woman in the friends.

In all her actions may religion shine,
And meek obedience, fix'd on right divine!
Yet let her add another motive too,
A just endearing cause,—the love of you;
That virtues, which before to all were shown,
Her love may now direct to you alone.

472

So rays, diffused, a fainter warmth inspire,
Which, when contracted to a point, are fire.

Long may you live and love, a happy pair!
She what you wish, and you be what you are.
Long may you both by sweet experience prove,
The best, the surest ground of love is love!
Say, is it not? If aught we disagree,
Think, I'm as near to you, as you to me:
And if perhaps to vengeance you're inclined,
Wreak it,—whene'er you like occasion find;
I should be glad to feel it,—if in kind.

ADDISON'S VERSES TO THE PRINCESS,

BURLESQUED.

Lo! the man that has whilom establish'd his fame,
Is now grown, with some reason, ashamed of his name.
Yet the Muse that so oft could with politics fire
Great sir Richard the knight, nay, and Joe the esquire;
That with marvellous courage and lucky invention
Britain's laws could defend, and deny her intention;
Make old Cato a Whig when the Tory court grieved her,
And then stoutly durst rail at the man who believed her;
Makes bold to the princess this writing to tender,
But desires not to print it till Preston surrender.

473

Joseph's hopes are assured; but of what, is yet latent;
Though it should by his gaping be pension or patent.
This princess secures what we now are possessing;
Though he stays not to tell us the name of the blessing.
'Tis no matter: it ages to come shall be seen in;
And though sense there is none, you may guess at a meaning.

He tells us, the land shall no longer bemoan
Herself as a widow, since Anna is gone:
Who was widow'd, we know, for some years of her reign;
But the king has a consort,—deny it who can:
As if our good fortune from thence did arise,
Where our monarch's severest unhappiness lies!
The royal line broken, new set, shall be stronger;
And the throne, you must know, shall be doubtful no longer.
That is, for a certain, howe'er he has minced it,
The throne always is doubtful when Whigs are against it.
Many babes shall immortal this family render,
All as right as my leg, not a rag of Pretender.
The females, poor girls! if we credit our prophet,
Shall have kings to their sweethearts; though nought will come of it.
But then, for our comfort, their hopeful young brother
Shall find out one lately born just like his mother:

474

And though his less fortunate sisters did fail,
He shall speed in his suit; and then heigh for heirs male!

Why art thou not, Joe, with thy friend still a sharer,
And to trusty Sir Richard a true armour-bearer;
To furnish out arms for the dead-doing knight,
To prompt panegyric, and satire indite?
Then each, as his genius best led him, might praise
The sad Children i'th' Wood or sublime Chevy Chase;
And you, while your wit did old ballads adorn,
Might with better grace talk of the babes yet unborn.

The Whig poets at length should, he owns, be appeased;
Nor be worse than Old Nick, who is good when he's pleased.
For abusing their betters there once might be reason:
Now it merits a gaol for suspicion of treason.
Their warm moderation should now become colder—
In verse; for in prose they may write a “Free-holder.”
Nay, they may, if they please, and have nought else to say, too,
Call the king “great as Cæsar, and virtuous as Cato;”
Whose soul was unmoved, though his rage could perplex it;
And who made in the play such a notable exit.

475

Meanwhile (for these praises must take up some time)
The princess may view the arts couch'd in his rhyme;
Which here shall be nameless: perhaps she may know 'em;
They are used at a court, and sometimes in a poem.
To' encourage such bards is her interest, says Joe:
For she then on the stage shall be set for a show;
Her character such as no Whig drew before,
More a Christian than Cato, and purer than Shore:
And in Drury (which, sure, she with rapture must see!)
She shall shortly the subject of tragedy be.
'Tis well Joe is loyal, and means not to harm her:
Had a Tory talked thus, he might fear an informer.
One of wit with his zeal would have wish'd from his heart,
That she never might make of a tragedy part.

As a queen Waller sung, though for no mighty matter,
Yet she lives to this day, 'cause the poet could flatter;
Even so shall the princess in after-times shine,—
But the flattery then must be nicer than thine.
Our grandsons with eyes, like us, smitten shall be
When they read of her charms, as we are when we see;

476

As with Henry's kind eyes we see Rosamond fair:
Which compliment makes the squire's loyalty clear;
For, though made to himself, he ne'er grudges it her.
But should no Whiggish bard (which, I own, would surprise)
Be in sense not poetic ambitious to rise,
And sing her rare charms, then we all are undone;
For, though never so rare, they'll be possibly gone
In an age, or in less,—'tis a hundred to one.
But for aye they must certainly live, if they're placed in
Some verse—but not this—that shall prove everlasting.

UPON THE PICTURES OF ONE MARRIED AND TWO MAIDEN SISTERS,

DRAWN BY BING AND A GERMAN.

My Muse must to the fair belong:
Three sisters' pictures claim my song;
Yet such as none can truly call
“Shadows of an original.”
Scarce artificial colours show
So odious on a living brow.
A painter deaf we often find,
But ne'er before a painter blind.

477

Whene'er a smooth Italian's art
The Venus paints that has his heart,
She fairer than the life appears:
And Frenchmen all are flatterers.
But when these pieces once we see,
The German and the Briton we
Can ne'er suspect of flattery.

The first, her sweetness laid aside,
More like a widow than a bride,
Frowns, and looks sad, and seems, to view,
A scold, a vixen, and a shrew.

The next betrays an idiot air,
As all were foolish that are fair;
Unknowing both of good and harm,
And tortured with a broken arm.

The last, a coarse and ruddy face,
A smirking, sprightly country lass,
If a straw-hat but added were,
A perfect milkmaid would appear.

She that the first and eldest stands,
Seems angry at the painter's hands.
For very spleen and rage she cries,
As wounded by his injuries,
Or mourning in a silent tear
The fleeting empire of the fair:
Fleeting indeed, if past as soon
As marriage-ceremony's done;
If those that Graces were before,
Turn Furies when the wedding's o'er.
Must those that were so gay erewhile,
That look'd so dangerous in a smile,

478

When married, lay their beauties down,
And wear no terrors but a frown?
Is every wife so given to prate
That those who, in a virgin-state,
In softest sounds their lips unfold,
When wed, in every picture scold?

Next she whose wit does all surprise
With lustre equal to her eyes,
In spite of sense an idiot made,
Belies her nature in her shade.
The' artificer's mistaking hand
An easy pardon might have gain'd,
If spots of snuff had scatter'd been
Like moles upon a lovely skin;
Since 'tis not an unerring rule,
That too much snuff declares a fool;
Nor are they always void of sense
Who take such care to dung their brains.
But who her folly seems to' have shown,
Too plainly manifests his own:
Whoe'er his pencil can approve,
Must do as ladies when they love
An ape, or Black, or Indian piece,—
Admire it for its ugliness.
So, when a boy, I've often seen
A king, a princess, or a queen,
Whose tawny face and gilded head
Have both my eyes and stomach fed,
Carved on enticing gingerbread.

A foreigner would last express
The features of an English face.

479

But, sure, our artist had design'd
Some High-Dutch beauty in his mind,
Since delicacy needs must be
A thing unknown in Germany.
Neglecting that resistless air,
That taking softness of the fair,
With clownish looks and Gothic mien
He draws a rustic heroine.
The' Italian thus, about to paint
The Virgin or some lesser saint,
Because they seldom care to come
From heaven to be drawn at Rome,
Prefers the mistress of his passion
To mother-church's adoration.

Expect not, fair ones, from my Muse
The justice painters could refuse:
For as unskill'd in writing I
As they at pencil's image-ry.
Could I in lasting colours lay
The charms the' originals display,
Could but I soar to such a height,
Could but my fancy reach my sight,
Scarce you yourselves so much should please
As in my verse your images,
Limn'd by the Muse's nobler toil,
More lasting, painter, than thy oil;
Pictures as much transcending thine
As Raphael Urbin does a sign:
Still should you live, preserved in lasting song,
Without a compliment, for ever young.

480

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF OXFORD.

UPON HIS NOT APPEARING AT ST. JAMES'S, 1724.

While thick to court transported Tories run,
Spurn'd by the sire, scarce smiled on by the son,
Freed from an iron reign's continued curse,
Expecting better, and secure from worse;
Beyond their principles now passive grown,
They lick the spittle which the Whigs have thrown;
Embrace the authors of their former fears,
Forgetting in an hour the spoil of years:
Reserved and silent you at distance stand,
Nor haste to kiss the oft-extended hand.

481

Their compliments and hopes let others show;
And if they must be laugh'd at, be it so.

If George, ascending his imperial throne,
With decent grief a father may bemoan,
Let not his partial greatness e'er require
That duteous Oxford should neglect his sire;
A sire who left a heritage more fair
Than hoarded wealth or sceptres to his heir.
A Harley seldom treads this mortal stage;
But kings and misers rise in every age.
He used for public good the public store,
Still daring to be just and to be poor;
Firm to his country's and religion's cause,
True to her ancient faith and ancient laws.
He due regard to learning's seat profess'd;
Nor awed with threatenings, nor with troops oppress'd;
Skilful through suppliant crowds to force his way,
And call retiring merit into day.
No narrow views his mighty soul confined,
Friend to the world, and patron to mankind.
He join'd in glorious peace contending kings,
And pluck'd the Austrian eagle's spreading wings.
He knew the rage of faction's tide to stem,
And gave the Brunswick race the diadem.
Graved in your bosom let his image dwell,
Great while he stood, but greater when he fell.
Fearless, serene, he look'd on danger nigh;
Let Harcourt double, and let Saint-John fly.

482

Against the storm he turn'd his steady face,
And scorn'd the shelter of an Act of Grace;
Let Whigs by mean retreat their gains insure,
Conscious they need the pardons they procure.
'Twas vain, O George, that mercy to refuse
Which Harley could not want and would not use;
To' insert his name who, faithful to thy line,
Amongst the British kings inserted thine!
What prince so vast a benefit would own?
Thou couldst not pardon; for he gave thy crown!
Fairly rewarded he,—to death pursued:
O glorious act of German gratitude!

To greet their power how nobly you disdain'd
Who strove with Oxford's murder to be stain'd;
To George, with supple fawning, scorn to bow!
Persist; remember you are Oxford now.
Faithful, but never cringing, to the throne,
Forgive his father, not forget your own.

487

AN EPISTLE TO MY LORD OXFORD, 1732.

Busied from morn to noon, from noon to night;
With little time to read, and less to write;
A few short moments I on thought bestow,
While through the Strand's long emptiness I go.

488

No laden carts divert my studies there,
Nor rattling coaches shake the quiet air.
No din of wonted trade the town employs;
'Change has no buzz, and Billingsgate no noise.
Silent and few, like ghosts, the walkers glide
Through desert Fleet-street and forlorn Cheapside.
Thames rolls, unpress'd with ships, an idle flood;
Shops vacant mourn, where trade was once so good;
And corn may almost grow, where Troy-novant has stood:
Whether retiring crowds the summer fear,
Or Sirius Walpole cause a desert here;
Whose pestilential breathing death inspires,
And into tenfold rage the Lion fires.
Justice perhaps may grace the ethereal plains;
Still in the Zodiac feign'd Astræa reigns,
Stranger, alas! on earth; unhappy we
Nor meet the Virgin, nor the Balance see.
Nor hopes of sweet vicissitude appear,
But Walpole's dog-days burn us through the year.

Nor yet shall sad despair our courage seize,
If lazy senators forget their ease;
Stoutly oppose the measures which they blame;
Nor throw the cards up, though they lose the game;
Dare to be overcome, though not to yield;
And, beaten inch by inch, yet keep the field;
Endure the heat of noon and length of night;
Persist, secure as Oglethorpe from fright;
And die, like Lyster, on the field of fight!
The spirit raised within St. Stephen's walls
A little wider spread, the robber falls.

489

That spirit brave the boaster may confound,
And make his head against his heart compound;
Who ne'er with good the least compliance show'd,
Except for hinderance of a greater good:
That spirit, long in Harley's house admired,
Through change of times unbroken and untired;
Whose perseverance has at length prevail'd,
The son succeeding where the father fail'd.
Hereditary friend to virtue's cause,
To real freedom, and to righteous laws;
He bids unbiass'd juries verdict give,
By whose decisive breath we die or live.
To laws yet nobler let his worth aspire,
With all his father's, nay, his uncle's, fire.
Sooner than Oxford shall be lost to fame,
And Harley be esteem'd a vulgar name,
The miscreant Gordon shall a Christian turn,
And Tindal martyr for religion burn;
Walpole shall tricks and tyranny give o'er,
And call back Francis to his native shore;
The world in Wilmot chastity shall see,
In Dunton wit, in Dryden piety!

O could a Harley farther yet proceed,
Our Holts and Hales recalling from the dead;
Or give to Price his ancient strength of mind,
Before his glory from its height declined;
Dismiss each wretch unfaithful to his trust,
And teach the reverend ermine to be just;
The streams untainted and the fountain clear,
Justice in native splendour might appear,
And none but Walpole and his minions fear!

490

So while departed ghosts their vices mourn,
Impartial Minos shook the dreadful urn;
(A judge of firm, inexorable mind,
Except in fable, we can hardly find;)
The truth, of colours stripp'd, severe he weigh'd,
By love unsoften'd, and by hate unsway'd;
Then, stern, consign'd them to their changeless state:
The' award was righteous, and the doom was fate.

Accept, my lord, these unpretending lays;
And give them pardon, where you cannot praise.
Who now to charm an Oxford shall aspire?
His Pope is waning, and deceased his Prior.
Though tinsel verse weighs not with sterling prose,
Yet still some small regard a rhymer shows,—
Not to discharge his debt, but to confess he owes.

494

AN EPISTLE TO MY LORD OXFORD.

While me far off the present hours remove
From him I reverence and from her I love,
For writing ill-disposed and ill-prepared,
A wifeless husband, and a lordless bard,
What genial warmth my bosom can inspire,
As void of amorous as poetic fire?
What noble hints can helpless I pursue,
Who want a patron, and a mistress too?

Yet still some lays for Oxford must I find:
The gift he marks not, but the giver's mind;

495

The mind which gratitude to Harley shows
In verse, distinguish'd but by rhyme from prose.
For here no sign of poetry shall be,
If fiction be the soul of poetry.
Rather with punctual truths I'll fill my verse,
In mode of grave, unlying travellers:
How summer's weather usually is good;
How turnpikes mend, and waggons mar, the road;
How various windings tempt our steps astray,
Except, like hounds, we smell the doubtful way:
While guides themselves sometimes mistake it quite,
And seldom know their left hands from their right;
Till paths, through rational directors lost,
Are surely pointed by some wiser post.
Each man we meet with, differs in report,
The road still lengthening as the time grows short;
While computation all our hope beguiles;
For northern way-bits beat our southern miles.
Who would not fret, such crosses long to bear?
Who would not shake, to feel the' inclement air,
Did not strong ale, as far we journey on,
Supply the fervour of the distant sun?

But, more than ale, warmth to my heart it yields
To see glad plenty load the fruitful fields;
To hope that orphans yet again may eat,
Nor friendless widows quite despair of meat;
That Irish thousands, with oppression worn,
Who still survive their want, may taste of corn;
Nor step-dame earth to merchants now deny
A morsel of her grain, before they die;

496

That even clothiers may perhaps be fed,
And starving weavers gain a piece of bread.
Though Heaven in vain its bounty may bestow,
If intercepted by the gods below:
In vain may valleys smile with timely grain,
And crowded garners boast their hoards in vain,
If taxes' weight the sinking farmer grinds,
And want resistless threats the labouring hinds.
They pine for food which their own toil supplies:
The muzzled ox so looks with longing eyes,
And, while he treads the sheaves, with famine dies.

Hence, gloomy thought and second-sighted care!
Spalding I view, and meet with Oxford there,
Where friendly minds in social bonds agree,
And politics exclude by policy;
Studious to search, since first their rise began,
Whate'er becomes the dignity of man;
Whate'er can knowledge to the soul impart,—
The ways of nature, and the works of art;
Of various trees the unexhausted store,
Herbs in the mead, and shells upon the shore;
Whate'er in life they worth remark behold,
Or trace in books the modern and the old;
Whate'er can creep or walk or swim or fly,
The deepest centre and the farthest sky.
Yet, to relax the bow so well they bend,
From physics down to music they descend;
And stoop sometimes from mathematics strong
To the light trifles of a poet's song.

497

But, what more justly must applauses gain
Than all the arts and sciences from Cain,
They strive to' advance good-will, as well as sense;
(Which learn'd Sir Richard styled “benevolence;”)
And well they execute that glorious aim,
As witness Oxford's honourable name.

If Harley, used to far sublimer strains,
This artless verse and humble voice disdains,
Let him the sign to other poets give,
Whose works to future age may hope to live.
His powerful nod can rouse the tuneful throng,
And call their sweetest numbers into song;
Bid heaven-born music cheer the listening glades,
When Fenton sings and blushes in his shades;
Bid humorous Gay in harmless fancy sport,
And please the good and fair, though not the court;
Bid Pope, harmonious, strike the' obedient lyre,
And make us less regret the loss of Prior.

501

AN EPISTLE TO MY LORD OXFORD.

February 17th, 1738–9.

Shall my plain verse at Dover-street intrude,
From age, from sickness, and from solitude?
Old age, before the time of nature brought;
Long sickness, following what the doctor taught;
Deep solitude, that spreads its horrors round,
Though fifteen thousand in the place are found.

But far may every ill from Oxford fly,
As distant from his ear as from his eye!
Farther than men can ever fly from men:
For these, when parted most, may meet again;
Yet when to meet with him can I propose?
(Alas! not that the lord of Oxford knows:)
Meet near the place where laws our senate give;
Where kings their sceptres and their tombs receive;
Where wise Eliza's royal gift appears,
Transmitting knowledge down to future years;
Where winning Sprat display'd each art to please,
With courtly elegance and learned ease;
In sense and strength where Atterbury shined,
Not yielding to the greatest of mankind;
Beneath whose smiles my youthful race began,—
The boy one favour'd, and one built the man?
No need in distant climates to be seen:
Leyden, forgive; excuse us, Aberdeen!
Shall tawny mounsieurs mould our rising breed,
A grisly Switzer, or a hard-faced Swede?

502

Hither shall some Italian scoundrel come,
Full-freighted with the fraud and lust of Rome;
Virtue and vice instruct us to miscall;
Oft with wrong faith, but oftener none at all?
Shall northern kirk-men lead our sons to own
The church establish'd and prelatic throne?
Or rather teach those altars to deride
Which Laud and Cranmer triumph'd for and died?
Shall sour republicans, to murders bred,
With Greek and Roman cut-throats in their head,
Show from pure faith what firm obedience springs,
And paint the sacred majesty of kings?
To' infect our youth shall modern statesmen try,
Train to deceive, and discipline to lie,
And count all other rules of life a jest
But present, paltry, private interest?
But hold: to mention more I now decline
Who err through dulness, passion, or design.
Let happy Westminster enjoy the while
Murrays or Hayes, a Bertie or a Boyle.
Healthy and hatless let the Harleys run,
And show their honest faces to the sun.
Those learning slight who laugh at virtuous fame;
While those advance it who deserve a name.
So empty Laureates to invention fly,
But ancient Muses sprang from memory.
Admire not that I truth and fable join,
Who name old Greek and Cibber in a line.

The small poetic gift I here intend,
Oxford, accept; for Chaucer bade me send.

503

While weak I wear out life remote from you,
But few approving, and approved by few;
Though still in health more than in wealth I thrive;
To please my friends, though not the crowd, I strive,
And, spite of knaves and fools, am yet alive!

TO MR. FORESTER, ON HIS MARRIAGE.

Some think that nuptial bliss can never stay,
A nine-days' wonder or a week of play;
While others fix its end not quite so soon,
But grant a lunar year—a honey-moon;
And most conclude its happiness is done
Before one annual journey of the sun.
Nay, every modish gentleman will swear
A perfect miracle it must appear,
To last a legal life-time—seven year!
Yet wisdom oft these narrow bounds has pass'd,
And made the transport long as nature last.
In your own hands your quiet chiefly lies,
And neighbouring forty warns you to be wise.

I grant, the thoughtless vulgar still suppose
Passion and reason always must be foes.
They throw off one, to make the other stay:
And where's the wonder travellers should stray
Who shut their eyes that they may hit their way?

504

The date of vulgar loves is hard to find,
Or tell how long a coxcomb will be blind.
Tell me how long a fever's heat will glow,
Or winds inconstant in a corner blow,
Or jilts and statesmen keep their solemn vow,
Or losing gamesters ply their desperate trade,
Or maids continue maids at masquerade.

Mankind below is destined to sustain
Labour and grief and weariness and pain.
To' avoid this lot, in vain a mortal strives:
It is not in our loves, but in our lives.
Lives there on earth who will not own 'tis so?
Yet few remember that which all men know.
The wise with patience greatest ills endure,
Which love may lighten, but can never cure;
And e'en for trifling crosses are prepared;
The fort, where weakest, needs the strongest guard.
So, when a dame, in men and manners skill'd,
Lives with a darling, but a wedded, child;
Reason, not instinct, all her actions guides;
Against her offspring still the mother sides.
Experienced age has taught her long to know,
To seem impartial is to seem not so;
Else household-jar the true-love's knot unties;
And life may linger, but affection dies.

True happiness no more consists in shows,
Than breeding can be found in gaudy clothes.
In spite of forms, your comfort will arise
From your own judgment, not another's eyes.

505

Far, far from view both grief and joy remove,
And ask no witness to dispute or love.
Those who to praise their consorts never fail,
Almost suspicious seem as those that rail.
Grant they speak truth, 'tis foolishness at least
To try to' express what ne'er can be express'd.
But if they lie, the boast but ill is borne;
In some moves pity, and in others scorn.
So have I known a matron who has reign'd
Over her husband with supreme command;
And yet, behind his back, at every word,
Has gravely styled him “governor and lord.”
Nay, to that height at last arrived she was,
She dared to call him “master” to his face.

You'll scarce accept these verses from a friend,
Except I wish you joy before I end.
May all the children Providence shall give,
Or die in childhood, or in virtue live.
Long may your loves in even temper hold,
Free from youth's fever and from age's cold.
Dearer than all things to each other grow,
Except your heaven above and faith below.
May timely death your happiness improve,
The sole divorcer of well-grounded love.

506

TO MR. LLOYD, ON HIS MARRIAGE, 1732.

Since still my tributary verse attends
The close or open wedlock of my friends,
With moral lesson schooling in their turn
The' adviser Juson and the lingerer Bourne;
Whilst in the dark my arrows aim'd have been,
Not without meaning, though the mark unseen;
You too my song—not quite exhausted—claim:
The man is different, but the thing the same;
For the fair end which virtuous loves pursue
Will ever be the same and ever new,
If wisely guarded by religious rules,
Not built on chance, the deity of fools.

When sprightly youth its bloom no more shall hold,
When the joints tremble and the veins are cold,
When wrinkled age furrows the smoothest face,
When the speech falters and the sight decays,
Love, even then, time's insults may repel,
And taste the rapture which it cannot tell.

'Tis a sure rule, and never yet was cross'd,—
That who expect the least, enjoy the most.
Yet idiots dream that flitting life can stay,
That no December will succeed to May;
Crosses and pains and griefs amazed to find,
And failures, not of sex, but human-kind;
Then lay the fault on husbands or on wives;
And curse their loves, when they should blame their lives.

507

For seldom 'cause of wedlock discord springs;
If, safe from great, we mind not little, things.
But fools will cherish seeds of rising jar,
And wage for every trifle household-war;
List friends on either side, and idly vent
Their griefs to male or female confidant,
Till long-repeated feud proceeds to hate;
And then mistake their folly for their fate.

Calm may your days in even tenor glide,
Remote alike from avarice and pride:
Low-thoughted avarice, that strains to find
Reasons for all the roguery of mankind;
And pride, that, by herself too highly prized,
As all despising, is of all despised.

Methinks, our daily drudgery affords
A cure for pride more forcible than words;
Which, duly constant as returning day,
In paltry bondage wears our lives away;
Toil without thanks, and labour without end,
That makes five enemies for every friend.
Be letters taught, be sense or wit display'd;
Yet Ben grows richer, and is better paid.
Ourselves inglorious, shall we vainly claim
Reflected dignity from public fame?

508

As well might galley-slaves, oppress'd with chains,
Because their ship is gilt, forget their pains;
Exult to view the colours wave on high,
Or the loose streamers float along the sky;
Laugh, when the billows dance against the shore;
And when the bubbles shine, enjoy the oar!

509

Long may your loves with mutual transport flow,
Sincere as Heaven admits of here below.
The husband's power let sweetest softness join;
Power, not from merit sprung, but right divine:
While she, expert your thoughts to understand,
Obeys unbidden, and prevents command;
Though still improving, never boasting sense;
Careful with ease, and gay with diligence.
Around your knees may lisping prattlers stand,
And daily faster tie the true-love's band.
Plain, humble sense may all the daughters share;
Wise, if not wits; and healthy, if not fair;
Unstain'd with spots of affectation foul,
That odious, nauseous leprosy of soul.
May all the sons their father's rule obey,
Nor Whig rebellion break paternal sway.
From either parent let them heir the good:
No matter for your means or for your blood.
For names are idle; pedigrees are vain,
Could you with certain steps deduce the train
From Caradoc the old, or later Charlemagne.
And as for wealth, let them by toil ascend:
Would you desire them greater than a Freind?

510

Well may their virtues pay your tears and pains,
And warm the chilness of your ebbing veins!
May filial gratitude with cheerful ray
Gild the calm evening of your well-spent day;
And tenderest duty to a mother shown
Reward the love you yielded to your own!

TO MR. JEWEL, ON HIS MARRIAGE.

Then it is done,—the' important work is done!
Cæsar at length has passed the Rubicon!
Let unresolving doubts be lost in air:
Outstrip that can, and follow him that dare!
Now all, unblamed, may taste the marriage-sweet,—
Or Fitz long-pondering, or myself discreet.
If fix'd, whene'er they please may take their turn
“The' adviser Juson or the lingerer Bourne:”
True Protestants at last! 'tis now no crime
To wed; for custom varies with the time.

A proverb just the management upbraids
Of wives by bachelors, and sons by maids.
The wedded pair can watch with quicker eye,
Rejoiced the parents' fondness to supply,
When he the yearnings of a father knows,
And she the' experience of a mother's throes:

511

So shall the doting sire his darling heir
Intrust with less reluctance to thy care.

Honest and just, who darest thy deeds display!
(More than for Bentley man on earth can say;)
Who threatening danger view'st with careless eye,
Though clouds low-gathering blacken all the sky,
Resolved love's pleasing dictates to perform,
To' outfly the whirlwind and prevent the storm,
Wisely to gather rose-buds while you may;
For who to-morrow dies, should love to-day.
Let ruling Whigs the disaffected see
Increased in numbers, and increased by thee;
While infant Tories swell the teeming womb
With slaves for tyrant Walpoles yet to come.

'Tis pass'd; and to recall the fleeting hour
Be distant from your will as from your power.
Loving, be loved; believing, be believed;
And undeceiving each, and undeceived.
Be female arts and windings far away,
And male aspiring to tyrannic sway:
Mild to command be thou; she, joyful to obey.
Choose rather lord to be than to appear;
Resolved, not proud; and constant, not severe.
Nor many words to praise the state employ;
Your peace unboasted, and unseen your joy:
Except, when transport unawares shall rise,
And conscious friendship sparkle from your eyes;
When smiles unbid the secret shall display,
Far more revealing than the tongue can say.

512

To crown your joys should numerous issue join,
And timely clusters load the fruitful vine,
May all impartial tenderness partake,
The babes be fondled for the parents' sake.
Yet still let plighted faith superior be;
Nor praise the fruit to slighting of the tree:
No favourite child a dangerous rival prove;
But nature powerful ever yield to love.

Should e'er—though Heaven avert it!—should your mind
Be prone to murmurs, or to rage inclined,
Early advised, this obvious truth believe,—
That you of Adam sprang, and she of Eve.
Since Eden lost, no Paradise we boast;
But who expect the least, enjoy the most.

AN ODE TO THE REV. DANIEL PRAT, M.A.

OCCASIONED BY ONE OF HIS.

I

In vain thou wouldst invoke the Muse;
The Muse thy calling will attend ill:
She ne'er would such a poet choose
To sing the harmony of Handel.

513

“How shall she teach?” Ah! how indeed?
Then know, my friend, the strength within ye:
Leave praising organs, and proceed
To' extol the sense of Buonancini.

II

Our souls, like Jacob's, take their flight,
Borne up to heaven in rapture seeming:
But heaven, if I remember right,
Came down to Jacob in his dreaming.
Pindaric flights we find in thee,
Base earth with highest heaven confounding:
Poor symbol is the trumpet-key
Of an archangel's trumpet sounding.

III

Hark how in Pope with “lengthen'd notes and slow
The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow.”
Hear Congreve's wit employ his tuneful tongue
To tell how beauteous Arabella sung;

514

And bid each ruder gasp of breath
Be calm as in the arms of death.
Freely from either bard purloin,
And spoil the verses:—They are thine.
“Again we hear” the words; the sense is drown'd,
Lost, like thy wits, “in ecstasy of sound;”
In ecstasy of sound, without pretence
To raise our souls to ecstasy by sense.

I.

The clown, (a brute!) as well he might,
Gapes at the sounds that would amaze one,
Terms that like conjuring affright,
As “solo, fugue, and diapason.”
Some god, he guesses, is at least
In the' organ that his heart so pierces;
Which none was ever such a beast
To fancy of thy lyric verses.

515

II.

“It speaks so sweet, so wondrous well:”
How strong the thought! how fine the rhyme is!
That line, if Dennis aught can tell,
A perfect pattern of sublime is.
Should strains like these stop the career
Of Puritanic zeal advancing,
As strange the story would appear
As Orpheus with his country-dancing.

III.

Though rage accurst the frantic breast can swell
With more than barbarous Puritanic zeal,
Music divine demands the poet's praise,
Worthy Cæcilia's ode and Dryden's lays.
Thy numbers yet unheeded flow;
And reason is they should do so:
Nor needs the fancy heighten'd be
To scorn thy grovelling poetry.

516

Let Phillips sing sweet Philomela's fate;
Who durst the' harmonious artist emulate?
Concerns it you? except like her you try,
Then drop the contest, flag the wings, and die.

I.

But let this melancholy pass:
The sing-song is not yet half over:
You quickly die; but then, alas!
Revive as quickly, like a lover.
Struck with the sound alone stark mad,
You scorn, whilst in your head 'tis ringing,
What by the world is done or said;
And one would guess so by your singing.

517

II.

It is not sound alone or air,
But harmony, the soul engages:
Yet harmony must not compare,
Though Handel's, to the sacred pages.
If human art to such high-flown
And dangerous compliments can win ye,
And raise “a spirit not your own,”
I fear 't will prove the devil's in ye.

III.

Avaunt, ye lies! and devils, fly the ground!
Nor break the circle of the sacred sound;
Nor mingle truths divine with Pagan dreams,
Nor Jordan's flood with Aganippe's streams.
No Thracian fable should be here;
Nor Delphic Pythoness appear,
With all Apollo's rage oppress'd,
Tormented, raving, and possess'd.
Sure, even in verse some difference is allow'd
Betwixt vain idols and the living God.
Name not Jove's nod with great Jehovah's will,
Nor join Olympus' top to Sion-hill.

518

I.

Bassoon, flute, cornet, fiddle, voice,
Humane or human, choice delight is:
Rapt up to heaven and angels' joys,
We spurn the world that out of sight is.
Nor had our poet been to blame,
To give his readers better bargain,
All kind of instruments to name
Betwixt a Jew's-harp and an organ.

II.

That “long nor king nor god can please
The stubborn, murmuring British nation,”
Is just like simile of Bayes,
And wants a little application.

519

When Whigs, in peaceful Charles's reign,
Their Ignoramus-men relied on,
This truth, express'd in Tory strain,
Flow'd from the matchless pen of Dryden:—

III.

“A pamper'd people, whom, debauch'd with ease,
No king can govern, and no god can please,”
Handel can calm, as when Aurora's beams
Dispel vain phantoms and delusive dreams;
Though vainer phantom cannot be
Dispell'd, or verier dream, than she.
“The Graces with his finger move,
Inspiring concord, joy, and love;”
Though moving Graces can no more be found
Than Fairies dancing upon Christian ground.
Whate'er your sermons or your prose may be,
At least half-heathen is your poetry.

I.

But now, as Yorkshire dragon's was,
The poet's sting too in the tail is:
“Long as a flail,” the ballad says;
And there no fence against a flail is.

520

Music can care and frenzy quell,
Make discord bland and envy hearty;
Nay, make the fiend forego his hell,
But not the Whig forget his party.

II.

Let Pope of Orpheus talk no more;
For Handel's organ can go further:
Were all things into chaos tore,
He could restore them into order.
Lions to tame, or teach a jig
To trees, is but a simple story:
He can extract a passive Whig
Out of a furious rebel Tory.

III.

Behold how Pope in genuine beauty shines,
And sings harmonious his unborrow'd lines:
“Intestine war no more our passions wage;
E'en giddy factions hear away their rage.”

521

His bullion is; thine, wire alone:
The colour stays, the weight is gone.
“Some secret power the storm restrains,”
You tell us, “when the tempest reigns.”
Know you not, then, the Power who bade it blow,
And taught the' obedient surges where to flow?
The God who made the seas, alone, can say,
“Hither, ye billows, roll; and here, thou whirlwind, stay!”

I.

E'en let the grumbler rave that will;
While Handel plays, we need not fear him.
Paulet and Hungerford, be still:
Lechmere and Wharton, hear him, hear him!
When reason gets into the throne,
The court shall teach us to be godly;
Pipes sound with breath that's not their own:
Is Fleetwood such an one, or Hoadly?

522

II.

When Whigs are out of power and place,
Their country bleeds; they rise to save her:
They rise then in their prince's face,
Are always patriots—out of favour.
Let the king smile, the tables turn,
The changing dyes change the chameleon;
The Whig shall at resistance spurn,
Whose very essence is rebellion.

III.

'Twas Harcourt's speech which taught the turn to use,
“That Tories cause the mischiefs they accuse.”
Thus Appius blind could Rome's great senate guide:
But Roman Appius never changed his side.
We need not silver tongues to show
The dear-bought blessings which we know.
“Dear-bought” the blessings needs must be
With seven-years' Commons and South Sea!
May gracious Heaven more mercy to us show
Than these its rods and scourges here below!
Grant us at last that happy state to see
Where, without discord, all is harmony!

523

TO MISS B., ON HER GOING AWAY FROM THE WELLS AT NORTHAW, 1718.

How pleasing to the fair and gay,
To meet and dance, and chat and play,
Where well-placed tapers' friendly light
Affords advantage to the sight!
Each virgin seems of finer mould,
And brighter show the gems and gold.
The more distinguish'd youth and maids
Sweat beneath velvet and brocades.
In vain the lovely breast is bare,
And, glowing, rises to the air:
In vain the spacious rounds below
Draw all the breath the winds can blow;
Nay, give to the licentious eye
The garter'd knee or snowy thigh:
For music, motion, youth conspire
To' increase the heat and fan the fire,
To kindle and to feed a flame
Which all their waters cannot tame.

Lives there whose fancy, wisely chaste,
Can scorn the pleasure she can taste?
Who, free to praise and skill'd to know
The well-dress'd belle and finish'd beau,
Yet ne'er essay'd admired to be
For dress transcending her degree;
Whose bloom of youth would ne'er endure
A mode enticing and impure;

524

Who, far from sullen and from proud,
Courts not applauses of a crowd;
Yet knows the sprightly dance to lead
With measured, graceful, easy tread;
And, sure of pleasing by her stay,
Can nobly choose to go away;
Gay and well-humour'd, when she flies;
Without degrading others, wise?
And can there such a virgin be?
There can, there is; and thou art she!

WHIGS AND TORIES:

IN FOUR POETICAL EPISTLES.

525

I.—WHIGGORUM PIETAS ET CONGRATULATIO.

Though sordid slaves their base obedience teach,
And passive fools their non-resistance preach;
Yet in each age some generous souls we see,
Bold to' assert the cause of liberty.

In Charles's reign Prynne, Burton, Bastwick, rose,
Who dared “malignant counsellors” oppose.
Then Milton, Marvel, Ayloff, Phœbus sent,—
The scourges dire of guilty government.
Next Molesworth, Pulteney, Saint John, Wesley came:
Alike their labour, and their drift the same,—
To lash corruption, to expose to hate
Courtiers and pimps and ministers of state.
Nor fear we now the' encroachments of the crown,
Since Wesley's pointed satire is our own.

Should our foes boast the numerous spawn of hell,—
Manwaring, Hobbes, L' Estrange, Sacheverell;
Should some their sacred characters display,
Wesley and Prynne are priests, as well as they.

526

Should some their wit and poetry oppose,
Wesley and Marvel are as arch as those.
Should cringing Tories court a rising lord,
From the green ribbon to the red preferr'd;
These merry wags would wish the knave a third.
Should awful blockheads, void of flouts and fleers,
Reverence the image which the metal bears;
These wits would show what did the gold debase,—
Cæsar's inscription, Cæsar's cuckold-face.
Slaves homage much the' insignia of the great,
The tools of power, the mere machines of state:
But Wesley 'stalments, 'crownments, turns to farce, [OMITTED]

Thus, nor cajoled, nor by nicknames misled,
Thou dost the paths of thy forefathers tread.
Go on, brave Whig! bad ministers defy:
Still dart thy keen invectives boldly high,
To the old tune, “Which no one can deny.”

January 30th, 1727. From the Calves'-Head Club.

II.—PIIS ET GRATULANTIBUS WHIGGIS RESPONSIO.

Yours I received; and stood surprised to see
Your Calves'-Head “gratitude and piety;”
To me, I own, beyond my merit kind,—
As friends make beauties which they cannot find.

527

But this and greater errors I pass by:
All faults are venial in a lover's eye.

Long ere I wrote, your politics had shown
You fear'd no more the' encroachments of the throne.
Let wicked Stuarts dare to' affect the power
Your suffrage often gave their successor,
Hampden in arms his sovereign shall defy,
And Sandys the blood-hound open with full cry,
Bradshaw expect his death for public good,
And Onslow sign petitions for his blood.

Though compliments you strain, this pen of mine
Like root-and-branch work authors cannot shine.
Peers, prelates, kings they strike: My lower flight
Can only reach the gewgaws of a knight.
Did knighthood catch the peerage in a string?
Or did St. George's Garter make him king?
If so, then Charles's sentence let him bear,
And lose his head for signing with an R;
While “Like for like” may sneaking Tories please,
Who wish no more than Pains and Penalties!
Did half your ardour but my breast inspire;
My soul did Sidney, Locke, or Hoadly fire;
I'd act the Roman tyrant-killer's part,
And stab him, though unsceptred, to the heart,
For senates, armies, taxes, without end,
A plot decipher'd and a South Sea screen'd;
Serene and pleased to' avenge my native isle,
And prove my poniard sharper than my style!
Through you secure of endless fame, should I,
Like Felton, Sindercomb, or Brutus, die.

528

Yet think not I applauded verse disclaim;
For who denies the works that bring him fame?
Whate'er you please is mine: your word's enough;
Or add your oath too,—never want for proof.
What, though your saviour Oates has closed his eyes?
Decipherers breathe, and circumstances rise.
Thus friends and foes my merit shall descry,
While you shall swear it, and I not deny.

III.—ANSWER TO A COPY OF VERSES,

ENTITLED, “PIIS ET GRATULANTIBUS WHIGGIS RESPONSIO.”

Dear Sam, erewhile you did a copy show,
To which, I find, you've sent an answer now.
The Whiggish knaves, 'gainst whom you write, disown
Their due allegiance to the British throne,
Except when pleased. We honest Tories dare
Be true and just to the worst kings that are.
If a weak prince, by wicked men misled,
Makes subjects bow to gods of wood and bread;
If such, as maggot bites and he sees cause,
Dispenses with the cobwebs of the laws;
Still are we faithful. How much more, when Heaven
A monarch of a different stamp has given!
Who courts his people, who their altars tends;
Mild to his foes, and constant to his friends;

529

To base revenge and mean resentment blind;
Parent of Britain, friend of human-kind;
Who still his just prerogative avers
Of placing or displacing ministers!

Even ministers of state (to whom, 'tis true,
There's no submission of allegiance due)
We treat with reverence; nor, like Strafford's foes,
To vulgar rage the envied great expose;
Nor hunt to ruin by the people's breath,
Who yell for justice, and who scream for death.

The ills of civil rage so much we dread,
We dare not even in patriots' footsteps tread.
Falkland opposed the court with honest view:
That opposition soon rebellion grew.
Whilst upright hearts redress of grievance meant,
The wily few were on black mischief bent.
Though those “bad ministers” alone decried,
These struck the master through the servants' side.
And if fresh opposition we allow,
There may be Hampdens, Onslows, Bradshaws now.

Hence we unlimited obedience teach,
And strictly practise what we, ardent, preach.
The Calves'-Head politicians may combine
To father what they will on thee for thine;
Yet I'll be sworn, no verses came from thee
That strike direct at sacred majesty.
Yet even such (or all the world are wrong)
In careless hours slip thy unguarded tongue,
And have in gaiety or heart been sung.

530

This asks a friend's reproof. It dangerous is,
Since plaguy Whigs have Pains and Penalties;
And it would grieve me much to have it said,
My friend for an old song had lost his bread.

I take the liberty to thus reprove
This and one other word in him I love:
The name of “saviour” I must frankly own
Too big for jest, sacred to Him alone
Who “Like for like” forbids, revenge denies
To basest men and blackest enemies;
“Makes prayers and tears his church's sole defence,
Nor suffers factious pens to strengthen Providence.”

IV.—AN ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING VERSES.

Dear Jem, to better converse are we come,
Our mask thrown off, our friendship to resume?
The prince whom you extol I can revere:
No good I hope for, and no bad I fear.
I weigh not George's reign with James's days,
Nor wound my sovereign with ill-grounded praise.

To God for mercy let me humbly cry:
For man,—his utmost justice I defy.
Are songs objected? Let it first be told
What Acts of Grace have pass'd and years have roll'd.
Or are such Acts for rogues alone design'd,
That those who least deserve them, most may find?

531

Though Whigs would scarce rejoice, were I to say
Who made, who call'd for, and who taught the lay.
Let terror Chesterfield or Edgecombe seize;
Or let sir Robert tremble, if he please:
So, if great things we may compare with small,
Did Marlborough stoop to Oxford in his fall.

Think not, I hope from danger to be free,
Or dream, like madmen chain'd, of liberty.
'Tis gone: no care, no innocence avails
To fence against decipherers and flails.
Was not Layer hang'd, by justice of the nation,
For reading good king William's Declaration?
And may not I next week as justly swing
Because a courtier's song I will not sing?
The case, no doubt on, when they please, is clear:
Sam surer signs with S, than Frank with R.
Yet wrath of Whigs my dread shall never move:
I cannot fear them; for I cannot love.

My characters too low or high have been:
No more like Falkland I, than like to Prynne.
Our Commonwealth's-men are, I hope, deceased,
Save the few heroes of the Calves'-Head feast.

532

Hardly is left them here and there a man;
And Gordon seems but half republican.
Our times abound with other sort of knaves,—
With rebels metamorphosed into slaves.
I think not in my pen there virtue lies
To flash due vengeance in the' oppressor's eyes.
No; if there did, the knight should feel its power
Sharp-piercing every day and every hour.
In glaring light should all his deeds be seen:
I'd pull the mask off, and remove the screen;
Pursue him till he dropp'd his guilty state;
Accuse, condemn, but not “accumulate.”

For one reproof I thank you as a friend,
Since there indeed I seemingly offend.
That Oates a “saviour” should entitled be,
I grant, is vile,—I think, is blasphemy.
Yet saints profane that monster so adored,
Whose tender conscience call'd no bishop “lord:”
That fact I with abhorrence should have shown,
To keep you from suspecting 'twas my own.

I judge the tree corrupted, by the fruit:
Did e'er the gospel stop a just pursuit?
What texts a Bambridge or a Huggins fence,
Who against Francis pick'd up evidence?
And may not “Like for like” a villain seize?
Then nearest just are Pains and Penalties.
I throw no wire-drawn guess on knighthood's name:
He owns as glory what I write as shame.
I own I think, as Christian, I am free
Within the bounds of laws and charity:

533

Do these forbid to hear the merchants' moans,
While starving thousands echo to their groans?
If so, let courts of law no longer stand,
And pull down Tyburn: 'tis a Christian land!

One only aim I seek in lighter strains,
Whatever monarch lives or party reigns;
Nor has my aim quite disappointed been,—
To make the losers laugh at them that win,
Suspend by starts their anguish and their fear,
And sometimes in a smile forget a tear.

535

TO THE HONOURABLE THE LADY MARY HAY. 1731.

This small acknowledgment be paid;
Let me discharge my debt in metre.
Must it be sung as well as said?
Let Lady Mary make it sweeter.

I leave fine speeches till eighteen,
When warmer love may pay its duty:
In fairest light may then be seen
The Wit, the Virtue, and the Beauty.

Meanwhile she's innocent and gay,
Nor smallest scandal rests upon her:
Far more than man on earth can say
For Carolina's maids of honour.

Though her own hand the letter writ,
Our years will from suspicion save her;
And me from arrogance acquit,
Though hourly boasting of the favour.

536

No slander can our conduct stain:
Indeed the case might something vary,
If twenty years from me were ta'en,
And ten were put to Lady Mary.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THOMAS AND HIS CASSOCK.

As great Tom of Westminster chanced to sit still,
Either reading a letter, or writing a bill;
Either silently pulling his gold out to view,
Or nicely computing when more would be due;
A grumbling he heard from a corner so sly,
Where a cassock neglected had long been thrown by;
And upstarting he cries in a fury, “What noise!
I thought I had set them their business,—those boys.”
But an answer was whisper'd,—

CASSOCK.
Ah! never, sir, yet
Any business to me, your poor cassock, you set.
I have stay'd till I'm tired: but you fancy, I see,
That I can't speak to you; so you won't speak to me,

TOM.
Why, indeed, Mr. Cassock, I did not, I own,
Think you would have begun with your preaching so soon.

537

I hope you'll this faculty keep when I wear ye:
So your sermon begin; for I promise to hear ye
Without nod or yawn; and I'll tell you—what's more—
That I ne'er so much minded a cassock before.

CASSOCK.
How can you, hard-hearted, thus let me lie here
Idle month after month, nay, and year after year?
Your gold you have treated much better than me,
And have kept it from rusting,—though not from South-Sea;
While I lie crumpled up in dust and in sloth,
To be rotted by age, or be eaten by moth.
If thus, I can tell you, much longer you do,
You'll be forced, when I perish, to buy you a new
Nor yet can you sell me, that loss to prevent,
Without losing twenty or thirty per cent.

TOM.
I hope you don't think that my brain is unsound,
For the saving a penny to squander a pound;
For the sake of a cassock that's old, though not worn,
From the channel of getting so sudden to turn.
Would you have me aside my advantages fling
Ere my thousands to ten or to twenty I bring?
As well a brush'd beaver to Chelsea might range,
Or resort to Spring-Gardens, in time of the 'Change.

538

CASSOCK.
You can't be so ignorant, sure, of the town
As to fancy that gain is forbidden the gown.
You may talk of the Funds and the Stocks all the day,
And at night may resort to the park or the play.
You may write billets-doux, if you have but a care;
And may farther proceed than to Phyllis the fair.
You may carry on every design as before;
Of which take two proofs, that are good as two-score:
That a man may in orders be rich and gallant,
Bear witness their Graces of York and of Cant.

TOM.
But then folks all my failures with malice will note,
Who will damn in a gown what they like in a coat.
And if I disgrace you by wearing, you'll own
I should do you more credit to let you alone.

CASSOCK.
If so much you're afraid of becoming a jest,
Keep your counsel, and no man will smell out the priest.
Though you orders should take without farther delay,
You may keep them in petto against a good day.
If his braying the ass will take care to keep in,
He may meet with respect in a lion's old skin.
So a Jesuit disguised like a Quaker may go,
Or an abbot lurk safe in the form of a beau.

539

Brother Penn in his time by court-favour could thrive,
And the rogue Robin knows Abbé Strickland alive.
You may still wear a sword, nay, and write yourself 'squire,
Like the great Mr. Hill, or the greater Matt. Prior.

TOM.
No! your mongrels I hate, and, whate'er you can say,
Will be plainly and openly cleric or lay.
I like not sir Robert's condition, who long
Had betwixt hawk and buzzard so foolishly hung;
Who was first to be bishop to Durham preferr'd,
And then (but in Ireland) a temporal lord;
And, desiring at least somewhat better than that,
Chosen knight for a shire, as a commoner sat.

CASSOCK.
There can never be danger that you should appear
In a Whig House of Commons, except at the bar.
But if doubling and shuffling you hate, as you say,
Either put me on now; or else wait for a day,
And then let a positive answer be given:
Never hang like Erasmus between hell and heaven.

TOM.
Nay, hold there: I long have been used to command,
If not by the turn, by the weight, of my hand;

540

But I must not, when gown'd, for the aid of my tongue,
Use that orator's weapon, though never so strong.
I'm afraid I in vain at my studies may pore,
And talk till my lungs and my stomach be sore.
When they know me disarm'd, I doubt, people will mind
Words only no more than what makes them,—the wind;
Nor value what blows to the cushion I deal:
Seeing is but believing; the truth we're to feel.

CASSOCK.
However, one thing you'll have power to do,—
For them care as little as they care for you.
If your voice to o'erstrain, being weakly, you fear,
You may mumble your sermon, and let no one hear.
If you like not the pulpit except you could bawl,
You may let it alone, and not come there at all;
Nay, and yet save your pence: any younker will go,
For the honour of preaching, a dinner, or so.

TOM.
But before I to orders directly proceed,
Methinks I a year or two longer would read.

CASSOCK.
You would read! pray, for what? In the court, I can tell,
It is not expected so much as to spell.

541

You by far other ways for preferment must seek:
Ask Bentley: A bishop should never read Greek.
It is better, if aught for advancement you care,
To be Talbot or Hoadly than Potter or Hare.

TOM.
When my schemes I have finish'd, and made up my store,
I will then put you on.

CASSOCK.
I'm afraid, not before.

Much more would between them have pass'd, without doubt;
The one was so pert, and the other so stout.
But the boy brought up word that a coach there attended:
So Tom ran to my lord, and the dialogue ended.

A SATIRE AGAINST SNUFF.

542

I sing of snuff! What power shall I adore?
Or whence shall needy rhymer aid implore!
Old threadbare Muses now no more will do,
And Sylphs and Sylphids are as much too new,
I'll e'en address, to purpose full as good,
An earthly mortal she, of flesh and blood.

O thou, for whom these numbers are design'd,
Be ever present to my labouring mind!
Still may I think on thy severe command,
To' inspire my tardy wit, and urge my backward hand:

543

So shall thy smiles as real strength infuse
As ever bard received from goddess Muse.
My task perform'd, with grateful joy I'll own,
That every single line proceeds from thee alone.

The snuff-box first provokes our just disdain,
That rival of the fan and of the cane.
Your modern beaus to richest shrines intrust
Their worthless stores of fashionable dust.
Or wrought, or plain, the clouded shell behold,
The polish'd silver, or the burnish'd gold;
The agate landscape, drawn by nature's hand,
Or finer pebble from the Arabian strand,
The shining beds where pearls imperfect lie,
Smooth to the touch when roughest to the eye;
While distant climes their various arts employ
To adorn and to complete the modish toy.
Hinges with close-wrought joints from Paris come;
Pictures dear-bought from Venice and from Rome;
While some with home-made lids their fancies please,
And bear enshrined their own dear images:

544

True to themselves they need no foreign face;
Nature divine can human arts surpass,
And each Italian paint must yield to looking-glass.
The lovely hand is now no longer bare
The rumpled neckcloth to compose with care,
To fix a falling patch, or smooth a ruffled hair:
The never-failing snuff-box ready stands
To show the well-turn'd joints, and lily hands:
Arm'd at all points, with this the beau can move
Envy in men, and in the females love;
Against this flail the fair have no defence;
'Tis humour, breeding, wit, and eloquence.
A kind employ the snuff-box can afford
To youths that scorn the pen, and fear the sword;
The well-cut nails are placed in open day,
And wanton on the lid the taper fingers play.
Circled with gold the brilliant diamond glows;
So fond the fop its lustre to expose,
That, like an Indian prince, he'll wear it at his nose.

The radiant box of treasured dust is full,
And richly furnish'd as its owner's skull.
A thousand shapes the Indian weed disguise,
Veil'd in a thousand shapes the weed they prize:
Of barbarous names who can recount the train?
The scented Bergamot, and Spanish plain;
The Orangerie with odour not its own,
Or that from Seville named or Barcelone;
The greenish sand which Portugal bestows,
Perfumed with urine to regale the nose!

545

Far-fetch'd Brazil, almost for touch too fine,
Which toiling merchants seek beyond the Line.
Let foolish Indians be no more our scorn,
Who truck their gold or gems for beads or horn;
The gay polite of sage Britannia's land
Will part with sterling in exchange for sand.
With what disdain the belles would glance askew,
Were leaf, not powder, proffer'd to their view!
Though still the thing's the same, the title only new.
For, favourite snuff, disguise it as you will,
In spite of art, remains tobacco still:
As when a fair is lured to sin and shame,
Though coach'd or carted, praised or damn'd by fame;
Though miss or duchess, lowly-born or great,
With cinders on her head, or coronet;
Down to Nell Gwynne, from Rosamond or Shore,
Whate'er her title be, in English she's a whore.

There are who veil their stinks with utmost care,
Scents, not Arabian, breathing from their hair;
Who, conscious of themselves, are frequent known
With sweat of civet-cats to hide their own.
When sweets and essence fail, and in their room
Too powerful nature conquers the perfume,
In self-defence they stench to stench oppose,
And guard with clods of snuff the suffering nose.
No smell can pierce through that secure defence,
No, not their own, not jakes or frankincense.
On wights like these nature in vain bestows
The jasmine, jonquil, violet, and rose;

546

No more to them, than if alone there grew
The loathsome garlic and the stinking rue.
Vain are the sweets that either Indies bring;
Vain are the blooming fragrances of srping.
As when the libertine, long used to rove,
Confirm'd in lust, unknowing how to love,
At random takes his undistinguish'd prey,
(Alike at midnight every puss is grey,) [OMITTED]

Strange is the power of snuff, whose pungent grains
Can make fops speak, and furnish beaus with brains;
Nay, can enchant the fair to such degree,
Scarce more admired could French romances be,
Scarce scandal more beloved, or darling flattery;
Whether to the' India-house they take their way,
Loiter i'th' park, or at the toilet stay,
Whether at church they shine, or sparkle at the play.
Nay, farther yet perhaps their snuff they keep,
Take it in bed, and dream on't when asleep;
For, sure, unless the beau may claim a part,
Snuff is the topmost trifle of the heart.
Nor care of cleanliness, nor love of dress,
Can save their clothes from brick-dust nastiness.
Let work employ the poor, snuff the genteel;
Your well-bred spinster scorns the spinning-wheel:
Let coop'd-up seamstresses their fingers ply,
And cloister'd nuns drudge at embroidery,

547

Fatigue for belles too great! who would as soon,
As deign to play the seamstress, play the nun.

Some think the part too small of modish sand
Which at a niggard pinch they can command;
Nor can their fingers for that task suffice,
Their nose too greedy, not their hand too nice:
To such a height with these is fashion grown,
They feed their very nostrils with a spoon.
One, and but one, degree is wanting yet,
To make our senseless luxury complete;
Some choice regale, useless as snuff, and dear,
Which shall in future times perchance appear,
To feed the mazy windings of the ear.

Let not a father frown, though stars conspire
To make the duteous son forget the sire,
Though what he likes unwittingly I blame,
And seem to slight a parent's sacred name.
Guilty my hands, but passive is my will,
If Fate's commands we mortals must fulfil,—
Fate the resistless cause and just excuse of ill!
If Fate permit, adieu, ill-natured lays!
Still let it be my task, with truth to praise!
Never shall satire more my quill engage,
Let Faction storm, and Moderation rage;
Let patriot Steele, in revolutions read,
Blaspheme the generous hand that gave him bread,
Call Delia “whore,” friends guard, and foes infest
In verse and prose, in earnest and in jest;
The same in every mask, in every state,
Alike ingenuous, and alike ingrate!

548

Still may my theme be praise, nor e'er again
Let keen invectives point my stabbing pen,
Till parties cease, till Dunton scribbles sense,
Till Tories match the Whigs in diligence,
Till Low-Church Harley love, and Cowper scorn,
Till bold Sacheverell shall a coward turn,
Till Tindal shall the Christian faith embrace,
Till Commonwealth's-men praise the Stuarts' race,
Till Secret Histories from lies are free,
Till Perkin shall in Scotland hated be,
And till De Foe no more deserve the pillory,
Till Sarah bounteous grows, Argyle content,
Till Steele shall learn to blush, and Wharton to repent.

553

WEDLOCK: A SATIRE.

Thou tyrant, whom I will not name,
Whom heaven and hell alike disclaim;
Abhorr'd and shunn'd, for different ends,
By angels, Jesuits, beasts, and fiends!
What terms to curse thee shall I find,
Thou plague peculiar to mankind?
O may my verse excel in spite
The wiliest, wittiest imps of night!
Then lend me for a while your rage,
You maidens old and matrons sage:
So may my terms in railing seem
As vile and hateful as my theme.

Eternal foe to soft desires,
Inflamer of forbidden fires,
Thou source of discord, pain, and care,
Thou sure forerunner of despair,
Thou scorpion with a double face,
Thou lawful plague of human race,
Thou bane of freedom, ease, and mirth,
Thou deep damnation upon earth,
Thou serpent which the angels fly,
Thou monster whom the beasts defy,
Whom wily Jesuits sneer at too;
And Satan (let him have his due)
Was never so confirm'd a dunce
To risk damnation more than once.

554

That wretch, if such a wretch there be,
Who hopes for happiness from thee,
May search successfully as well
For truth in whores and ease in hell.

A FULL ANSWER:

AN ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING INVECTIVE.

“And God said, It is not good for man to be alone.”

I

Attend to verse with meaning good:
Perhaps of dulness you'll accuse it;
And fancy, with conjecture shrewd,
For want of wit I do not use it.

II

No matter: smartness I despise,
When serious is the theme or holy:
Better you to yourself seem wise,
Than I be partner of your folly.

III

Poetic faults I shall forbear,
No doubtful sense to laughter wresting;
For jesting were in me unfair,
Who blame you seriously for jesting.

555

IV

Think you the Bible all a lie?
If inspiration be not dreaming,
You shoot your bolts at the Most High;
And cursing wedlock is blaspheming.

V

“'Tis apt to raise forbidden flames;
Care, discord, pain, despair to waken:”
Design'd by God for other aims;
Say, then, was Providence mistaken?

VI

That marriage hell on earth must prove,
How vainly would Invective show us!
“Because unfit for souls above,
And mindless animals below us.

VII

“Nay, worse than endless flames 't will be,
And add to hell itself new trouble:
Were Satan wedded to a she,
'T would render his damnation double.”

VIII

What madness 'tis, abroad to deal
Firebrands and death on this occasion!
O may you never come to feel,
Eternity is in DAMNATION!

556

IX

Yet “truth in whores can never live:”
Where would the rant your frenzy carry?
Pray, why should “soft desire” survive,
If men must neither whore nor marry?

X

What's whoredom? Loss of friends and fame;
False calm, and real desperation;
Poor guiltless children born to shame;
And guilt and pain and salivation!

XI

Repent, renounce all wicked wit:
Think not your pride I bear too hard on.
So may the world your flights forget,
And God forgive, and Willy pardon.

TO MISS MARTHA WESLEY.

AN EPISTLE, 1735.

[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

559

When want, and pain, and death besiege our gate,
And every solemn moment teems with fate;
While clouds and darkness fill the space between,
Perplex the' event, and shade the folded scene;
In humble silence wait the' unutter'd voice,
Suspend thy will, and check thy forward choice;
Yet, wisely fearfnl, for the' event prepare;
And learn the dictates of a brother's care.
How fierce thy conflict, how severe thy flight,
When hell assails the foremost sons of light;
When he, who long in virtue's paths had trod,
Deaf to the voice of conscience and of God,
Drops the fair mask,—proves traitor to his vow;
And thou the temptress, and the tempted thou!
Prepare thee then to meet the' infernal war,
And dare beyond what woman knows to dare:
Guard each avenue to thy fluttering heart,
And act the sister's and the Christian's part.
Heaven is the guard of virtue; scorn to yield,
When screen'd by heaven's impenetrable shield.
Secure in this, defy the' impending storm,
Though Satan tempt thee in an angel's form.

And O, I see the fiery trial near;
I see the saint, in all his forms, appear.

560

By nature, by religion, taught to please,
With conquest flush'd, and obstinate to press,
He lists his virtues in the cause of hell,
Heaven, with celestial arms, presumes to' assail,
To veil with semblance fair the fiend within,
And make his God subservient to his sin!
Trembling I hear his horrid vows renew'd,
I see him come, by Delia's groans pursued.
Poor injured Delia! all her groans are vain;
Or he denies, or listening mocks her pain.
What, though her eyes with ceaseless tears o'erflow,
Her bosom heave with agonizing woe?
What, though the horror of his falsehood near
Tear up her faith, and plunge her in despair?
Yet can he think, (so blind to heaven's decree,
And the sure fate of cursed apostasy,)
Soon as he tells the secret of his breast,
And puts the angel off—and stands confess'd;
When love, and grief, and shame, and anguish meet,
To make his crimes and Delia's wrongs complete,
That then the injured maid will cease to grieve,
Behold him in a sister's arms, and live?

Mistaken wretch! by thy unkindness hurl'd
From ease, from love, from thee, and from the world;
Soon must she land on that immortal shore,
Where falsehood never can torment her more:
There all her sufferings and her sorrows cease,
Nor saints turn devils there to vex her peace!

561

Yet hope not then, all-specious as thou art,
To taint with impious vows her sister's heart;
With proffer'd worlds her honest soul to move,
Or tempt her virtue to incestuous love.
No: wert thou as thou wast, did heaven's first rays
Beam on thy soul, and all the Godhead blaze,
Sooner shall sweet oblivion set us free
From friendship, love, thy perfidy, and thee;
Sooner shall light in league with darkness join,
Virtue and vice, and heaven and hell, combine,
Than her pure soul consent to mix with thine;
To share thy sin, adopt thy perjury,
And damn herself to be revenged on thee;
To load her conscience with a sister's blood,
The guilt of incest, and the curse of God!

AN ELEGY ON MR. CHARLES WESLEY,

SUPPOSED DECEASED.

Fallen is the youth that was so good,
And corn now grows where Troy-town stood.
I wail in melancholy rhyme
A youth departed in his prime.

562

His favourite fair ones all lament him,
From Mrs. Prat to Nanny Bentham.
The lads are all in the same tune:
“Pity poor Charles should die so soon!”
Was it for this, through cares and fears,
For more than ten long tedious years,
Pommell'd in college and in school,
He bore the doctor's iron rule?
Was it for this,—to die at last,
Soon as his captainship was past;
Not to be heard of now, or seen,
Unless his ghost glides o'er the green,
Who used alive to' employ his tongue
In singing of the fairy song?

What might we well have hoped to see
From such a hopeful one as he!
Books, poems, letters, and what not?
And, sure, a pretty hand he wrote.
He might have held forth, when a priest,
As well as Henley can, at least.
But now our golden hopes must fail,
Since there's no fence against a flail,
Nothing from death can refuge give,
We die as sure as we're alive.

563

Fancy his voice and form supplies,
Which ne'er must bless mine ears and eyes.
His back—methinks I see it yet—
A quarter-staff might well befit.
His legs, that seem'd not made to skip,
Would leap; O dear, how they would leap!
His countenance sweet he could disguise,
And wink and goggle with his eyes;
Sometimes a leer of archness throw,
And raise aloft his shaggy brow.
How would he show in tunes his skill
In warbling an Italian trill!
How would he Rhodes on errands send,
Or break the lamp of Dr. Freind,
Or maul the Whigs with libels keen,
Or at a turncoat show his spleen,
Or still poor Bradshaw handle worse,
Spit in his face, and call him “horse!”
In vain I count his virtues o'er;
He's dead,—and so I'll say no more
For what, alas!—ah! what, indeed?—
Is to be done or to be said?

564

TO MY WIFE, ON HER BIRTH-DAY.

December 1st, 1717.

I

Hail, day, the fairest of the year!
Which did to birth the virgin bring;
Less lovely opening buds appear,
Less sweet the violets of spring.
Nature her gifts on woman showers;
More beauteous, but as frail as flowers.

II

'Tis not the sun alone which gilds
The skies, or glads the smiling day:
Her form a livelier prospect yields,
And turns December into May.
May this revolving light dispense
Joy spotless as her innocence!

III

That only morn claims more regard
Which sees the maid in marriage given;
Since life itself, with love compared,
Seems but the second gift of heaven.
Long may the sister-days auspicious prove!
Long may the one give life, and the' other love!

565

ANACREONTICS TO MY WIFE.

I. [O, to see my Nutty smiling]

O, to see my Nutty smiling,
Time with amorous talk beguiling,
Love her every action gracing,
Arms still open for embracing,
Looks to mutual bliss inviting,
Eyes delighted and delighting,
Spotless innocence preventing
After-grief and sad repenting;
Neither doubting, both believing,
Transport causing and receiving;
Both with equal ardour moving,
Dearly loved and truly loving!
Long may both enjoy the pleasure
Without guilt and without measure!

II. [Ere I found you fair and good]

—1715.

Ere I found you fair and good;
Ere the nut-brown maid I view'd;
Sunny walks and spreading trees,
Sports and theatres, could please.
Soon as e'er my Love was known,
All I left for her alone.

566

Golden hours glide smiling on,
Golden all without the sun;
Since I, happy all the while,
Hear you talk, and see you smile.
Sunny meads and living trees,
Sports and theatres, displease;
Learning's self and friends, adieu!
Joys are centred now in you.
Yet by learning shall I prove
Partly worthy of your love.
Hope so glorious will despise
Aching head and watering eyes:
Hope so glorious will allay
Midnight watch and toil of day.
Books for you aside were thrown,
Now resumed for you alone.

III. [Meanest rhymer that I am]

Meanest rhymer that I am,
Scoff'd and branded for the name;
Still I write, if you approve;
Glory shall submit to love.
Were I fill'd with poet's fire,
Sweet as gay Anacreon's lyre,
Verse if you should disapprove,
Glory should submit to love.
Truth you read without disguise;
Stranger I to sugar'd lies,
Faithless, fawning flatteries!

567

Love like mine will still compose
Verse as faithful as my prose.
Fabling poetry shall ne'er
Paint you lovelier than you are.
Talk of goddesses who will,
Still you're dear, but woman still.
Be but what you're now, I'll ne'er
Wish you lovelier than you are.

IV. [Dear, and ever dear, whom I]

Dear, and ever dear, whom I
Wooed and won without a lie,
Let my growing passion prove
Still more pleasing to my Love.
Verses smiling have you view'd,
Graced alone with gratitude:
Still they're grateful : may they prove
Still more pleasing to my Love!
Here no witty falsehood shines;
Here no tinsel gilds the lines.
This suffices, if they prove
Full of truth and full of love!
Truth can never need a lie:
Truth is sense and poetry.
Truth alone could Nutty move:
Truth is happiness and love.
May our age be as our youth,
Full of love, and full of truth!

568

One the other never grieving,
Undeceived and undeceiving;
Happy thou, transported I;
Faithful, blest, without a lie!

V. [My dear, whatever you believe]

May 6th, 1732.

My dear, whatever you believe,
To me 'tis natural to grieve,
When round about my eyes I throw,
And view my country's present woe,
And see—or think, at least, I see—
A worse, far worse futurity.
I inly mourn, but quickly try
To mingle laughter with a sigh.
This thought, perhaps, some satire draws
On villains who our ruin cause;
That patriots from continued grief
May find in mirth a short relief.
Thus laudanum will ease insure,
And dead the pain it cannot cure.
But if the respite others find
Gives greater torment to your mind,
For ever, if disliked by you,
To pleasantry in verse adieu!
Henceforth then, to my dying day,
Shall I compose the future lay
Merry or melancholy? Say.

569

FOR A SICK CHILD.

JOHN IV. 46–53.

I

Jesus, great Healer of mankind,
Who dost our sorrows bear,
Let an afflicted parent find
An answer to his prayer!

II

I look for help in thee alone,
To thee for succour fly;
My son is sick, my darling son,
And at the point to die!

III

By deep distress a suppliant made,
By agony of grief;
Most justly might thy love upbraid
My lingering unbelief.

IV

But thou art ready still to run,
And grant our hearts' desire:
Lord, in thy healing power come down
Before my child expire!

V

Surely, if thou pronounce the word,
If thou the answer give,
My dying son shall be restored,
And to thy glory live.

570

VI

Rebuke the fever in this hour,
Command it to depart;
Now, let me now behold thy power,
And give thee all my heart!

VII

O save the father in the son!
Restore him, Lord, to me!
My heart the miracle shall own,
And give him back to Thee.

VIII

I will, I will obey thy word,
To thee my all resign;
I and my house will serve the Lord,
And live for ever thine!

ON THE DEATH OF A DAUGHTER.

Adieu, my Nutty, dearly bought!
I envy thee, but pity not;
Happy the port betimes to gain,
Secure from shame and guilt and pain!
No lover false thy youth beguiled;
No wicked and unthankful child
Tortured with grief thy riper years,
Or crush'd with woes thy hoary hairs.

571

O blest, beyond misfortune blest,
And safe in never-ending rest!
Let me, if not for thee, my dear,
Drop for myself a secret tear.
For me, my best of life-time knows
Decreasing friends and growing foes:
To those whom most I wish to please,
The cause of pining and disease;
Alive,—in storms and tempests tost;
And dead,—perhaps for ever lost!
If doom'd to feel eternal pain,
Never to meet with thee again!
Though, midst the pangs of stinging thought
And bodings of despair, if aught
Can make me pleased with life to be,
'Tis that I being gave to thee.

“A WOUNDED SPIRIT WHO CAN BEAR?”

I

What ease, what medicine for a wounded mind?
Why to the wretch are sense and being given?
Why should I live, or wherefore die, to find
Nor ease on earth, nor yet repose in heaven?

572

II

My breast still swells with unavailing sighs;
My eyes still flow with unvailing tears:
Tears that, unbid, gush silent from my eyes;
Sighs where true, genuine, secret grief appears.

III

With taste most exquisite of every bliss,
Stranger to joys, I every sorrow feel;
While in myself the cure neglected lies,
I see and like the good, but do the ill.

IV

Curst by myself, I of myself complain;
As none the guilt, let none the torment, share!
'Tis sore, distracting anguish, bitter pain,
Sure, full damnation of extreme despair!

573

EPITAPHIUM VIVI.
573

ENGLISHED.

A man who slighted gold lies here,
True to his laughter and his aim;
Yet, even in his mirth severe,
He laugh'd at glory and at shame:

Who counted vulgar favour light,
And smiles of lords; who held as sport
The whispers of defaming spite,
The thunder of a threatening court:

574

Stranger to care, than kings more bless'd;
Unmoved, however parties go:
A friend to Harley, when oppress'd;
To Walpole, when in power, a foe:

Who Anne her country's parent thought,
Still lovely princess, “still the same;”
And praises to her ashes brought,
An humble offering to her fame:

Not mindless of the prelate great,
By statute sent across the main;
A father, tried in either state,
He loved, and was beloved again.

Safe from the foes he ne'er could fear,
Unhurt, in dust he lays him down,
Whether you praise him with a sneer,
Or sourly blame him with a frown.

EPITAPH.

Here Wesley lies in quiet rest,
Hated in earnest for his jest.
Here he his worldly bustle ends,
Safe from his foes and from his friends.

575

LINES

ON HEARING SOME WISH THAT I HAD NEVER WRITTEN.

July 28th, 1733.

Not oaths of ministers of state,
Not starving threaten'd as my fate,
Could tempt me once to fear or frown,
Or make me leave “Hey derry down!”
Could cause my sporting pen to cease,
Or make me write a line the less.
But here my resolution ends;
I yield, I'm conquer'd by my friends.
“My cask of joy to dregs is run,
And I must taste my other tun.”

Adieu, my mirth! to which alone
I owe that I am loved or known;
With which the rage of foes I stood,
And even friends' ingratitude;
Which willingly I'd not resign
For Homer's Iliad, Pope, and thine.
The pleasantry of life is o'er,
And I must laugh and sing no more.
No more thy strains I must pursue:
Adieu, my darling mirth, adieu!

Now, granting what my friends would have,—
That, very wise and very grave,
With verse and satire I have done,
And shadows of offences shun,

576

Till deep discretion owns at last
The quarantine is fully past;
Behold the' effect! At fifty-five,
If things should hit and I should live,
Or not perhaps till seven years more,
Preferment comes, at past threescore:
Then (woundrous fruit of wisdom!) I
Shall just be rich enough to die.

Fuit lætitia.

VERSES

UPON MY RUNNING OUT OF THE ROOM WHEN SOME LADIES CAME INTO IT.

What an idiot should I prove,
Once transform'd by mighty Love,
That so simple now appear,
Awkward, clownish, full of fear!
My trembling voice would then forego
Its faltering, solitary “No;”
Nor could my eyes unfold my mind;
Dumb, alas! at once, and blind;
Undeserving of the fair,
Sad, and certain to despair!
Knowing, then, myself, by flight
Timely I avoid a sight
That my heart might captive lead,
Never, never to be freed;

577

Which, while free, on fear relying,
Shuns unpitied, fruitless sighing;
Ever safe, while ever flying.

AN EPISTLE TO ME.

Dear Sir,

Nor wild ambition nor mean hopes of gain
Provoke your friend to tempt the watery main.
A long-weigh'd scheme, to full perfection brought,
Bids strain each nerve, and quicken every thought.
Nor flies he toil, nor fears he tyrants' rage,
Nor still 'gainst numbers wordy war to wage.
He flies a wicked land, from heaven withdrawn;
Where Aires and Hoadly stain the fur and lawn;
Where dire oppression wears the garb of laws;
Where ------ owns aloud the devil's cause;
Where the press groans with licensed blasphemies;
Where father Francis in long exile dies;
Where faith with virtue's punish'd as a crime;
Where the gull'd Tories Sandys and Pulteney join,
To their ambition give up church and laws,
Give up their party's and their country's cause,

578

And right and wrong no longer now dispute,
But which Whig ministry shall rule the brute!
Vanquish'd or victor, since his country's lost,
His duty bids him seize another post;
Whence rallied, honest men may make a stand,
Regain their own, or plant a better, land.

EPILOGUE TO ADELPHI.

SPOKEN BY DEMEA. UPON AN ACTOR'S BEING TAKEN OFF THE STAGE AND CARRIED TO BRIDEWELL.

Since angry Justice late her power essay'd
To stop the progress of dramatic trade,
In earnest ended what in jest begun,
And dropp'd the curtain ere the play was done;
An arch comedian-wag compell'd has been
To make his entrance in another scene,
To act a part he never play'd before,
And from low life descend to suffer lower:
Perhaps you'll ask us, if our bard and we
Can stand the test of legal scrutiny.
Small privilege, I fear, can Terence have,—
By birth and fortune African and slave.
From their own parish far, his persons come;
At Athens born and bred, they stroll to Rome.
But there the vagrants meet uncommon grace,
And e'en his worship Scipio signs the pass;

579

Where'er they roam, of favour still secure,
If wit may favour claim, or language pure.
But who in court a plea of wit e'er saw?
And Latin, all must own, is dead in law.

These reasons fail, perhaps, if strictly tried;
But, sirs, I Demea take the milder side;
And those who carry summum jus so high,
'Tis hoped, will change their minds as well as I.
Let mercy temper rigour: though, I own,
I dread no other danger than your frown.
On Rome I little build, on Athens less;
Yet no commitment fear nor law-distress:
I act by licence from the good queen Bess.

EPILOGUE TO THE SAME.

TAKEN PARTLY FROM A LATIN ONE BY THE SAME AUTHOR. SPOKEN BY DEMEA.

January 15th, 1728–9.

My former humours I with ease lay down,
No more a churl, a snarler, and a clown.
Much is already done: for—let me see—
Hegio is wealthy made, and Syrus free;
My brother, aged sixty-five, is sped,
And my young daughter finely brought to bed.
Is there aught else? Yes; I must higher rise,
Proceeding you, my audience, to advise.

580

Why, what a ruin'd, paltry place is here!
Is this, sirs, like a Roman theatre?
Ask not superfluous questions,—what to do,
Since the old structure totters; build a new;
Erect a nobler: nor regard expense:
Consult our use and your magnificence.
'T will cost you little to remove that wall:
You need not pull it down; but let it fall.
Nor vast will be the charge to carry on
What all degrees so gloriously begun.
Away with doubts, excuses, and delay!
Nor stop, where peers and kings have led the way;
Where priests and prelates have example shown,
The reverend guardians of Eliza's gown.
Thus soon the bounteous, patronizing great
The dome may perfect, and the work complete;
And to our common glory be it said,
That you perform it, and that I persuade!

EPILOGUE TO THE SAME.

Your ancient bards were wiser far than we;
Their usual epilogue was, Plaudite.
What need of many words, when one would do?
Though sometimes they would add, Valete, too.
But different now with us the mode is grown;
None but long-winded epilogues go down;

581

Of smooth and suppliant words an idle store,
That sometimes mean as much, but never more.
'Tis true, excuses were superfluous then:
The plays were sterling sense, and worthy men,
The characters of life were mark'd so fair,
And all who trod the stage had business there.
Why should apologies perplex the brain?
They then were needless, and they now are vain;
Unless to' acquaint the gentle lookers-on,
“Take notice, this is all; the play is done;”
Which else the sharpest critic had not thought,
And ne'er had guess'd at by the finish'd plot.

Now wit is scarcer grown, for more you call;
As taxes heaviest on the poorest fall.
Say, is not Terence of applause secure,
Without this fond, unclassic garniture?
Our author's merit is our strongest hold;
Not antiquated yet, however old.
For us, your favour we desire to share:
For him, condemn the' Adelphi if you dare!

PROLOGUE TO “THE EUNUCH.”

We're now no more in those enlighten'd days
When squeamish murderers took offence at plays;
When stage to kill a king had approbation,
But stage for plays was vile abomination.
Their tragedies by night were never done;
They scorn'd a meaner witness than the sun:

582

While scenes and lights unsanctified their eyes,
Resembling antichristian pageantries.
Nay, Protestant besides the stage is grown:
It breeds no whore,—at least, of Babylon.
Dramatic bards with pious pens conspire
To maul old Popery with poetic fire;
And preach in “Lady Jane,” and sneer in “Spanish Friar.”
From a suspicious place is Terence come,
Yet humbly begs a favourable doom:
'Twas Rome he lived in, but 'twas heathen Rome.
He wrote and flourish'd long ago, 'tis plain:—
His mirth is chaste, nor is his wit profane.
Pity what well is writ, should ill be play'd;
Which should it chance, it justly may be said
That acting is our sport, and not our trade.
Actors have gain'd applause for D'Urfey's plays,
For female farce and sing-song operas.
Let it on t'other side for once be known,
An author's worth for acting can atone:
And though your doom should prove at last severe,
Be just; and, ere you sentence, see and hear.

PROLOGUE, 1716.

When public ills late claim'd the public care,
And feuds and tumults boded civil war;
When, gathering black, were hovering thunders heard,
And bravest patriots for their country fear'd;

583

Nor dared we act, nor had you liked to see,
The ill-timed mirth of sportive comedy.
Though, had we on preposterous mirth been bent,
Well could we clear ourselves by precedent:
And precedent has screen'd a greater crime
Than disregard to decency of time.
When the famed whirlwind shatter'd Albion's coast,
And British mountains mourn'd their honours lost;
When wrecks of navies strew'd our shores around,
And palaces and temples spread the ground;
The players, merry mortals! undismay'd,
True to their bills, and constant to their trade,
The next-succeeding night their comic “Tempest” play'd:
Machines the terrors of the storm must feign,
And roll disturb'd their imitated main;
Mock lightnings flash, incarnate devils fly,
And puny thunder shakes the mimic sky.
Art ill-employ'd! From art, 'tis true, we're free;
But want as well their flagrant piety.
Your favours, then, impartially extend:
Like them we please not,—nor like them offend.

HENLEY'S SHIELD.

An orator with wit so keen
A shield would hammer from a screen,
Whose hardness has been often tried,
Whether of brass or of bull's hide.

584

He shielded Preston-rebels many,
Who got their penn'orth for their penny.
In Porto-Bello's peaceful field,
What thousands slept beneath our shield!
He members shields in his good graces
From loss of pensions and of places.
He shields our traffic; as is clear
By captain Jenkins and his ear.
He shields alike, in peace and war,
Our freedom and our Gibraltar.
How did astonish'd Europe dread
Our shield, when shaken at Spithead!
And then for shielding, who but he,
Widows and orphans in South Sea?
He shields our laws,—the case is plain,—
By Acts of Penalty and Pain.
He shields our army, too, no less,
With Wolfenbuttle and with Hesse.
He shielded George the First, and shook
His promise made to Bolingbroke.
And though no shield he did appear
To save the promised life of Layer,
Yet no man can deny, I hope,
He shielded Charteris from a rope:
The fittest cause that e'er was known
To show the shield in, but his own!

585

TO CHRISTOPHER RHODES, ESQ.,

ON HIS BIRTH-DAY BEING TRANSFERRED FROM JUNE TO JULY.

I

When the late king demised, his son
Seem'd not in haste to take the crown.
The tenth of June was slunk away;
He wore it on the' eleventh day;
Though an apostle lost his place,
And George thus routed Barnabas.

II

Now loyal subjects, I maintain,
Should imitate their sovereign.
Wherefore, whene'er it serves a turn,
We days and seasons may adjourn
For a whole month: 'tis in our power
As easily as for an hour.

III

Another plea, too, may arise,—
That July next to August lies;
And Walpole, if we credit fame,
First into life in August came.
Your birth, then, stands, by this delay,
The nearer to sir Robert's day.

586

IV

But Time, for all our care and sleight
To slacken or to stay his flight,
With speed uninterrupted flies;
As one is born, another dies.
Virtue alone will ever stay;
But life “has wings, and will away.”

V

Age comes unheeded and unsought,
Not hasten'd by a serious thought.
No! if it were, my friendly lays
Should never hint at fleeting days:
Unhurt, unsung, you should, for me,
Live to the year of jubilee.

VI

Live! for your spouse and daughter, live;
That each protection may receive
From slight or wrong. Live, that your son,
By kindness and by spirit won,
The love you thought a mother's due,
Transported, may repay to you.

VII

Well may you spend the remnant-space,
And wisely close the' allotted race!
Since happy, only happy, they
Who, fitted for the final day,
Secure their other birth can see,
Born to a bless'd eternity.

587

SPANISH INSULTS, 1729.

Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.

Strange are the turns the course of ages brings,
And fickle Fortune plays with human things.
At will the Wanton roves from coast to coast,
And gives this land the worth which that has lost;
Bids mighty Valour make a mean retreat,
And steady Wisdom quit her ancient seat;
Patriots in different climes their virtue show,
And various tides of empire ebb and flow.

How great, how awful once the British land!
When old Plantagenets and Tudors reign'd;
When Edward's arms to farthest North were known,
Or fix'd a monarch on Iberia's throne;
When vassal-crowns were conquering Henry's prize,
And Gauls aspired not to be term'd “allies.”
Nor less illustrious was our realm confess'd
In that bright period which Eliza bless'd;
While either Indies dreaded from afar
Raleigh and Drake, her thunderbolts of war.
Hither she bade the eastern spices flow:
Ours were the gems the Orient could bestow,
And treasures of Peru and Mexico.
In vain conspired the powers of Rome and Spain;
The deep beneath the' Armada groan'd in vain;
When from her arm was aim'd the' avoidless blow,
And Heaven's auxiliar storm dispersed the foe.

588

Great without pride, without oppression strong,
She took no insult, as she did no wrong.
Thee, too, victorious Anna, own'd so late
The glorious arbitress of Europe's fate!
Thee Philip fear'd; nor, fearing, could repine
To yield his Calpe to a hand like thine,
Worthy to hold what rightful conquest gave;
For, wise thy statesmen and thy heroes brave!

But where, ah! where are all our glories flown?
O wounding thought! and O distressful moan!
Britannia's sons, condemn'd to new disgrace,
Now fly the spoilers they were used to chase;
Seek not to beat, but bribe, the' injurious foe;
And beg the peace they wonted to bestow;
See thousands slain, their forts besieged; nor dare
To give the' outrageous waste the name of “war;”
Submissive bow to proud Hesperian lords,
And with but passive valour meet their swords.
Wide though our stately fleets o'er ocean ride,
Mock'd is their threatening, and contemn'd their pride.
Mere farce of war! to' avenge our ravish'd trade
Forbid, and only licensed to persuade!
We share no more the rich Peruvian mine;
No second Vigo must adorn our coin.
Old patriot valour leaves this hapless land,
And, leaving, rises on a foreign strand.
'Tis hard the sad vicissitude to bear,
And see the Spaniards what the Britons were.

589

A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN AT AVIGNON TO HIS MISTRESS HERE:

IN ANSWER TO “A LETTER FROM A LADY” BY MR. TICKELL.

While far from thee in exile sad I rove,
With double weight of banishment and love,
Thy letter cheers me in a distant land;
But, O! 'tis written by another's hand.
Yet why should anxious doubts my bosom grieve,
Inclined by love and party to believe?

You ask, what steady friends our cause will own
To fix the favourite wanderer on a throne,
Desperate if nothing stronger he prepares
Than female armies or than Popish prayers;

590

What wondrous schemes our dying hopes revive;
What countless sums our plunder'd friends can give;
What generous aid the hireling Swiss intends;
What swarms depopulated Sweden sends;—
At home inquire: The' Exchange will tell you all;
Or learn the' important secret at Whitehall,
Where plots most dangerous are to statesmen shown,
With us unheard-of, and at Rome unknown.

Let wonted pleasures wing your softer hours,
Nor church's safety banish matadores.
Nay, view the public as your usual game:
The stakes are different, but the chance the same.
Yet boast not, though you plead our exile's right
In all your dreams by day or feasts by night:
No passive fair one half the fury shows
Nor half the reading of her female foes.

591

To them the gentle Tatler gave alarms,
And aged Nestor kindled them to arms;
Legions of authors edified their zeal,
From Locke and Sidney down to Oates and Steele.
Can solitary Abel battle these?
Numbers bear down a single Hercules.

How on the beauteous sex can James confide,
If half still combat on the adverse side,
With eyes opposed to eyes, an equal crowd,
Their nails as piercing and their tongues as loud?
While general Addison, the Squire of Dames,
Proud of enrolling their associate names,
Teaches their party-ribands to display,
And leads their banner'd host in fair array,

592

With patches ranged, the Tories to confound,
While fans loud-fluttering should the triumph sound,
What boot your headless, unexperienced bands
'Gainst troops so wise a veteran commands?

Vainly, alas! you rue and wormwood chose,
Or graced your bosoms with the Yorkist rose;
For herb-of-grace each loyal soldier hates,
And guards are planted at your churches' gates,
Justly enraged that damsels dare be seen
Adorn'd with virgin-white or willow-green.
Their ready insolence can all things dare,
Secured from every law but that of war;
Whose stern, unhallow'd rudeness could molest
The soft asylum of a maiden breast.
The city's ruler, arbitrary, pours
His civil vengeance on the traitor-flowers:

593

Nor pink nor primrose can be safely worn;
Nay, every bush which snowy flowers adorn
Is Popish deem'd as Glastonbury thorn.

Your hopes imaginary succours feign:
Our enemies have seized on Drury-lane.
To force the strong intrenchments we despair;
For half the royal army quarters there,
Whose virtuous squadrons guard the friendly doors
Of veteran bawds and regimental whores.
There patriots flock, their loyalty to prove,
And throng the temple of the land of love;
Where Steele well-paid presides, adventurous knight!
Nor checks the progress of obscene delight.

594

There modest vestals laugh at Congreve's play,
Who sink with blushes at the farce of Gay;
Yet lewd Vanbrugh can with applauses see,
And smile barefaced at impious Wycherley.
At blackest scenes of vice they crowd the ring,
Blaspheming God, but honouring their king.
Did all the prostitutes for James declare,
Soon were the conquest gain'd without a war:
No change of chiefs could sinking George defend;
For every soldier would the dames befriend.

AN EPISTLE TO MY LORD ORRERY, 1738.

From banks of Ex or Loman shall I soar?
Where bard of Westminster ne'er sang before;
And where, if angry foes their threats maintain,
No Westminster shall ever sing again.
No climate this to tempt heroic flight.
Or raise a genius up to Pindar's height:

595

Yet even here I'll try, in humbler style,
To please you as a friend, if not as Boyle.

A friend! what's that? what can the word intend?
Who can explain the barbarous term “a friend?”
'Tis hardly English: glossaries profound
May teach the' importance of the sacred sound;
But not to you, who friendship dare to show
To fortunes moderate, and to fortunes low;
From modest worth disdaining to recede,—
Southern in years, or Sheridan in need.
Let miscreants, cast in base, inferior mould,
Avoid the needy, and despise the old:
Though he that virtuous age with judgment eyes
Will find more cause to envy than despise;
While willing nature gently wears away,—
The calm, still evening of a cloudless day;
Nor scenes of guilt perplex the dying hour,
Ill-weaved ambition, or ill-managed power.

Say, how shall wisdom's care our lives dispose,
To end with safety, and with rapture close?
In duty's paths unfailing hope is found,
Built by sound learning on religion sound.
For this from Ireland Orrery repairs,
To trust to' Eliza's walls his darling heirs.
She favour'd musty books and grammar-rules,
And liked the' impartial levelling of schools,
Where boys with prayer-books and with psalms they breed,
And teach to reverence and rehearse their creed;

596

Nor teach in vain, when public care we find
With private prudence and affection join'd;
When the pleased father leads the ready son
At once by precept and example on,
And female sweetness trains the rising mind
To all the softer virtues of mankind.

Twice-happy Boyle! again ordain'd to prove
The chaste endearments of connubial love!
Twice-happy sons! again allow'd to share
The tender safeguard of a mother's care!
For not that sacred title truth denies,
Where love all-powerful nature's place supplies.
A stepmother exact, exempt from fault,
'Tis easier to be than to be thought.
Yet many fair have risen in spotless fame,
Whom calumny back-wounding durst not blame.
Such may your consort long your household bless,
Diffusing and receiving happiness;
From their reserved fanatic sourness far
Who wage with laughter everlasting war;
Who purest faith in deepest frowning place,
And take ill-nature for a sign of grace;
Who cause the straying feet yet more to stray,
And vex with needless thorns the narrow way!
In her, true, genuine cheerfulness you see,
Not stifling, but adorning, piety;
While inward joys in open looks appear,
And the clear conscience makes the forehead clear.

Perhaps you'll ask me, how so well I know:
I answer short, “Her husband told me so.”

597

Proof plain and strong! for, if he pass his word,
I dare believe him, though a wit and lord.
Suggested thus by him, a stranger's line
As his may please her, though it fails as mine.

PROLOGUE TO MR. BRADY'S COMEDY, CALLED, “HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY; OR, THE RAKE DISAPPOINTED:”

SPOKEN BY HIMSELF, WHO ACTED THE CHIEF PART.

You've seen me oft enough to know me here:
“Young Nick” 's my name, and “fool” my character.
Besides, my voice is heard, and phiz is shown:
I need not throw my cloak off to be known.
An old man's garb is a disguise too thin;
The cloak can seldom keep the fool within.

598

A lion's skin the silent ass may case,
But length of ear the solid brute betrays;
For, while his ears remain, an ass will be an ass.
Howe'er, our farce shall well be represented:
Nor is my acting here unprecedented.
Shakespeare in his own plays a part would bear,—
Some meal-faced ghost or black-wigg'd murderer:
But the top-characters surpass'd his skill;
For, what he well could write, he acted ill.
Thus to acquire renown and please the fair,
I come, like him, a playwright and a player.
Nor do my works and action disagree;
(In which you'll own I'm happier far than he;)
For I alike excel in each capacity.
None but myself can in so just a light
Each different humour place to open sight;
And none but Nick should play what none but Nick would write.
Say, every single she in Richmond, say,
Have I e'er fail'd to show or read my play,
Or act it all myself, on each glad holiday?
Have I e'er fail'd, soon as released from schooling,
To change my tragic birch for comic fooling?
In public, then, forbear my work aspersing:
'T has pass'd your private judgment in rehearsing.
Of the unlearn'd let it not feel the fury
That stood the verdict of an Oxford jury:

599

For 't has at Oxford had its hearing too,
Rehearsed at once to twelve good men and true.
I would not have you clap,—though it may happen
There mayn't be much occasion for your clapping.
But if you fain your private sense would utter,
Rattling with modish rage your fans must flutter:
They must, or else my schemes are all disjointed,—
The Fool, as well as “Rake,” is “disappointed.”

Well, for myself I'll say,—and mark, d' ye see?
I shall for once speak without vanity,—
Young Nick to-night does Falstaff's self transcend,
Though play'd by Betterton, by Shakespeare penn'd.
The best-drawn copy to delight must fail,
With me compared,—a mere original.
For never yet on any stage was shown a
Coxcomb so true in propriâ personâ.

He used to rehearse to all the women in Richmond.

He writ an epilogue for himself to speak in the person of an old man; where he throws off his cloak and tells them,

------ “You like the trick:
I am no more old Interest, but young Nick.”

He was the Doctor's son, and assistant in teaching school.

He read his play, at St. John's in Oxon, to twelve in company, most of them strangers.

The two last verses in his “Prologue to the Ladies” are,

“Lest rustic claps should hurt your tender hands,
Take the Spectator's rule, and flourish with your fans.”

LINES ON A REPORT THAT DUKE WHARTON WAS EXPELLED A LODGE OF FREE-MASONS.

Duke Wharton, on the tenth of June,
Whistled a treasonable tune;

600

Nay, more, half-drunk, in merry vein
The health of James the Third began.
This each mysterious Lodge alarms,
And all the Masons rise in arms.
The reverend Deputy acquaints
The Master of a Lodge of saints,
It highly would become their zeal
Their late Grand-Master to expel.
One frantic health thus cost him more
Than all his blasphemies before.
What, though he made hell-fire his mirth,
Devil incarnate upon earth;
The volleys of whose impious tongue
Have through the land with horror rung?
Yet, this consistent was allow'd
With Mastership and Brotherhood.
The prelate-brethren had forgiven
His treasons 'gainst the King of heaven;
Which Presbyterians bore with ease,
For all their tender consciences.
And is it thus, you Masons Free,
You prove your ancient pedigree?
Could acts like these be ever done
By Moses or by Solomon?

601

ON A LINE IN “THE CHARACTER OF A COUNTRY PARSON:”

“And shakes his head at Dr. Swift.”

I

When Jonathan his wit displays
In satire and sometimes in praise,
Much I admire his matchless gift,
Yet shake my head at Doctor Swift.

II

When he discovers, vain and mean,
The' amour betwixt a fair and dean;
Though private life I scorn to sift,
I shake my head at Doctor Swift.

III

Whene'er he leaps religion's bound,
When rattling oaths in volleys sound;
My hands and eyes I then uplift,
And shake my head at Doctor Swift.

IV

When he with lewdness lards his jokes,
In ordure and in urine pokes;
To' avoid a puke I make a shift,
But shake my head at Doctor Swift.

V

If e'er, forgetting Ireland's cries,
In England he attempt to rise,
I'll grieve to see the paltry drift,
And shake my head at Doctor Swift.

602

TO MR. THOMAS.

Once disappointed, yet again
I dare in verse to try my pen.
Though Bob my grovelling genius knows,
Unfit to make a speech in prose;
He has not yet, whate'er he may,
Bid me not sing, as well as say.
Though, if he did, 'twere very right,
Could he prevent my speaking by 't;
Since, if his thousands it would bring,
Like him I would not say or sing,
Or cease at those to stretch my throat
Who change their party and their note,

Yet leaving seekers, high or low,
At present to their cringe and bow,
My business let me not forget,
As authors use, to show their wit.
I beg this letter may atone
For rudeness I have never shown.
I shall not, in the common way,
My fault upon another lay,

603

Because from fault I'm wholly free;
The blame was yours that fell on me.
I read your invitation straight;
Nay,—though I say 't that should not say't,—
Though business I had then good store,
Yet twice or thrice I read it o'er;
But could not find a single word
Or tittle in 't about my lord.
I dare affirm, there's no such thing,
Except you use deciphering:
For then, perhaps, an M is there,
Which stands point-blank for Mortimer.
How could I otherwise divine
An earl expected me to dine?
An earl three hours for me to wait,
Unworthy tendance from the great!
More honour than if proudest knight
Three days had waited for my sight;
Or Townshend should obsequious stand,
And humbly beg to kiss my hand!
As soon I might have thought to spend
A week at board with Doctor Freind;
Or dream my merit might this year
Me to a bishopric prefer,
Through interest of such loyal men
As Edmund, Lancelot, and Ben.

604

These fancies, or perhaps as vain,
Might fall into my crazy brain:
But frenzy could not rise so high,
While loose and out of Bedlam I,
To slight a happiness so great,
Or Harley with neglect to treat,
Or thought of disrespect to bear
To Oxford's earl and Oxford's heir.

TO CAPTAIN EARLE.

Dear Sir, I must entreat from you
A boon as friend and schoolfellow,—
That great Sir Robert you would see
For me,—nay, never stare,—for me!
Not that I want his hand to kiss
For pension, place, or benefice;
But should rejoice, could I procure
Some guineas for a father poor.

605

I shall not put you off with flams
'Bout satires, songs, and epigrams;
Nor, to gain favour, cringe and lie:
I neither own them nor deny.
More generous will his bounty show,
The more he takes me for his foe.
But were I ten times worse than he
Has heard or others fancied me,
Some kindness to my sire be done,
If but for having such a son;
Who, sure, the greater his distress,
Deserves more pity, and not less;
As true to Brunswick and his heirs,
As any He that Britain bears.
When the whole nation seem'd to be
Mad with the losses of South-Sea;
Cato and Brutus, monarchs' foes,
Their country's evil genii rose;
My father then with unpaid hand
For kings and ministers durst stand;
A man that never flatter'd yet,
And ne'er forgot a benefit.
Now, if in vain I should not sue
For what, I think, myself would do,
Could I ascend to high degree,
And Walpole ever sink to me;
I honest gratitude shall show;
No courtier I, as well you know.
My promises shall be but few,
And therefore likelier to be true.

606

The timely obligation shown
On just occasions I shall own,
And to my power and in my way
With fullest interest will repay.

SATIRICAL POETRY

AGAINST SIR ROBERT WALPOLE'S ADMINISTRATION.

610

I.—AN ODE TO MR. WALPOLE.

I

Walpole, accept the lyric strain:
The strain is ever due to thee,
Thou saver of the Preston train,
And great restorer of South Sea!

II

In vain, unfriendly to the lyre,
Thou seek'st to quench the poet's flame;
In vain would Modesty retire
From glory which thy merits claim.

611

III

Begin! the annals fair unfold
Of Walpole prevalently great,
When simple Tories gave the gold
That bribed their party from its seat;

IV

When Parliaments were doom'd no more
Than three short winters to remain,
Till wisdom deep prolong'd their power,
And bade them for a life-time reign.

V

Through thee the free-born Briton braves
The' assaults of arbitrary power;
Tortured with shackles, laughs at slaves;
And boasts of freedom in the Tower!

VI

Through thee may British kings possess
A more advanced revenue far
Than James or Charles enjoy'd in peace,
Than Anne or William in their war.

VII

Merit, not number, now we see,
In all elections bears the sway;
And fifty, when sustain'd by thee,
Can make five hundred fly away.

612

VIII

Thy conduct no suspicion draws,
Nor friends of liberty alarms;
Though arms are still increased by laws,
And laws are still enforced by arms.

IX

Long daring to oppose thy power,
By thee the stubborn Francis fell;
Resistless, when thine anger swore
The haughty prelate's pride to quell.

X

Thy piercing eye through plots profound,
Almost unsearchable, can see;
And depths which Harcourt cannot sound
Are plain to Pawlett made by thee.

XI

To thee the' united senate bends,
And laws themselves confess thy power;
The Charter of the Forest ends,
And Magna Charta is no more.

XII

Through thee all court the stronger side;
Protesting keen no more alarms;
The haughty London veils her pride,
And Scots deliver up their arms.

613

XIII

For thee their chests the misers drain,
And three per cent. rejoice to choose;
To others faithful but for gain,
Obliged by Walpole when they lose.

XIV

Thy pleasure right and wrong can make
To shift their limits to and fro:
Freind at thy nod as hell is black,
And Saint-John is as white as snow.

XV

The Utrecht treaty, growing good,
That severs Austria's house from Spain,
'Twas Oxford's treason to conclude,
'Tis Walpole's glory to maintain.

XVI

Thy mercy wise, for public ends,
To every sect indulgence shows,
To Quakers unbaptized extends,
And smiles on unconverted Jews.

XVII

Thy yoke old rebels willing bear,
Obsequious to thy least command:
Nor wilt thou leave, to breathe the air,
A single Tory in the land.

614

XVIII

One only wish the bard can give
To raise thine honour yet more high:
When fate permits no more to live,
With equal glory mayst thou die!

II.—UPON THE JEWEL OF THE TOWER. 1716.

I

In glorious Anna's later time,
When Whigs were stripp'd of sovereign power,
Their wits extoll'd in ballad-rhyme
A precious Jewel of the Tower.

II

O might they now repeat their art!
How Britain would rejoice once more,
Could she but see the second part
Of that same Jewel in the Tower!

III

The second part to the same tune,
To mend what was amiss before;
That greater care might now be shown
To keep the Jewel in the Tower.

615

IV

Case-harden'd Steele it did surpass,
Yet still grew harder every hour:
And such a rarity, sure, was
No where so well as in the Tower!

V

The gems were once, we know, purloin'd:
But now that trick can take no more;
They're safe in locks and bars confined:
And so should this, too, in the Tower.

VI

But let the counterfeit be shown,
And cant abuse our ears no more;
The gem became the case of stone;
Walpole was Jewel of the Tower.

VII

It was not George's gem, they said,
Nor of his partner Anna's store:
'Tis pity, then, he kept his head,
Or e'er came living from the Tower.

VIII

He ne'er deserved, we'll all agree,
The same that Cæsar did before:
Subjects the gems of crowns may be,
But Whigs the monsters of the Tower.

616

IX

His claws at least should be secured
From ever doing mischief more,
When safe in dens for life immured,
Like other monsters of the Tower.

X

So might his savage rage be stopp'd;
So might he roar, but not devour;
Or slaughter beasts alone when coop'd,
Like other monsters, in the Tower.

XI

Murders at home and wars abroad
Must sate his thirst of human gore:
Monsters so greedy after blood
Appear but seldom in the Tower.

XII

Since Whigs sang songs when you were in;
Since, now you're out on 't, Tories lour;
There, all agree, you brightest shine:
Again be glorious in the Tower!

XIII

Not only ballads should display
Thy merits, as they did before;
But bonfires brighten all thy way,
And guns salute thee at the Tower.

617

III.—MERCY: AN ODE.

I

Of cruel Power let others dream,
And charge the great with doing wrong:
Their Mercy, an unusual theme,
Is here the subject of my song.

II

When Anne and Britain's glory died,
They scorn'd the cost of idle show,
Of mourning guards and velvet's pride,
Of peers and pageantry of woe;

III

Designing more than royal state,—
That all who dared their mistress love,
Impeach'd, might follow her in fate,
And bear her company above.

IV

When first their monarch treads our shore,
The court its mildness soon declares,—
By stopping Ormond at the door,
Instead of throwing him down-stairs!

V

Rewards to steady friends to give,
Impartial o'er the realm they range;
That fees good Cowper might receive,
And bless the universal change.

618

VI

Since Charles restored, none such appears
In any single life-time seen;
Nay, count to make up seven years
The glorious Revolution in.

VII

Harley, who never knew to yield,
Who gave the Brunswick race their power,
From rage of listed mobs they shield,
And safely lodge him in the Tower:

VIII

Though ne'er to try him they intend,
But mourn he should in durance stay;
Nor thousands would refuse to spend,
To bear his charge—to fly away.

IX

The senate, who a golden store,
Unask'd, had pour'd on Brunswick's throne,
Nor met, nor were dissolved, before
The sovereign took his offer'd crown;

X

Lest they, perhaps, the pompous day
Had graced, and George's medals shared;
Lest interest might have seem'd to sway,
When virtue was its own reward.

Cætera desunt.

619

IV.—THE HUMBLE ADDRESS OF THE KNIGHT TO THE KING.

Since now from all sides you're address'd,
Permit me, Sir, among the rest,
An humble supplicant to stand,
And make my speech, and kiss your hand.
My business is to beg your Grace
Would not remove me from my place:
Which granted, in few words and plain
I mean to teach you how to reign.

From cares and toils you shall be free,
Rule but as viceroy under me.
Things at my whistle shall be done,
For any reason, or for none.
Of which an instance take most curious:
Because the world is grown luxurious,
And 'cause the king should by his station
Set an example to the nation,
We shall enable you by Bill
To eat and drink and --- your fill;
That, if you list, you may afford
To spread again the Green-Cloth Board;
And make what duchesses you please
For public-private services.
Fear not your running up a score;
It shall not be accounted for.
The Funds shall to your pocket sink,
And yet the public debt shall shrink.

620

Besides, no living mortal knows
Like me to' avenge you of your foes.
I mind not prating Jacks a straw:
If any title me “bashaw,”
I send with unresisted power
The free-born Briton to the Tower.
For, but to hint I do amiss,
The blackest of all treason is.
If you but cast an angry look
Upon a bishop or a duke,
Attainder sends him 'cross the seas,
Or Act for Pains and Penalties.
Impeach, imprison, try, and kill,—
It all shall be but Mercy still:
I'll hang the Jacobite by vote,
Who offers to affirm 'tis not.
What wonders may not acted be
By him that remedied South-Sea?
You shall not, under my command,
From regency excluded stand.
Nay, more: let me but gain my ends,
I'll give preferment to your friends,
And (if you beg to have it done)
Bestow a garter on your son.

O, be not from this glorious course
Seduced by evil counsellors!
No ear to wicked Tories yield,
To Pulteney or to Chesterfield.
If idle tales your heart should move
Of public good and people's love;

621

Should you not open, frank and free,
The flood-gates of the treasury;
Should your next parliament be new;
My knighthood then might look but blue:
For if you let their votes alone,
You are a king, and I am none.

V.—NOSCE TEIPSUM: TO THE KNIGHT.

I

Discourteous and adventurous knight,
'Tis your old custom, wrong or right,
To call each foe “a Jacobite.”

II

That ugly, saucy word keep in;
For 'tis mere vice correcting sin,
Cethegus blamed by Catiline.

III

From the same charge yourself defend:
And, if that silly way you mend,
You've cause to thank me as a friend.

IV

The Preston tale need not be told,—
How rebels' lives you fairly sold,
Who had their purchase for their gold:

622

V

Nor yet how, wonderfully good,
For father Francis once you stood,
When Sandys was panting for his blood:

VI

Nor yet what hints from Mar you took:
Nor how most manfully you spoke
“For the good lord of Bolingbroke.”

VII

Nor yet your worth shall we accuse
Of vile and treasonable views,
For spending nights with Mrs. Hughes.

VIII

But still some faults will foes espy;
And fools ask questions by-the-by,
To which your wisdom won't reply.

IX

They ask, (and well it might amaze
Those who can wonder at your ways,)
What schemes you laid with madam Hayes:

X

Since plots with ease you make appear,
Though deep as hell, why don't you clear,
Who sent to Rome your cousin Layer?

623

XI

Did ever those whom you miscall
Bestow preferment, great or small,
On Benedictine-general?

XII

Did wicked Tories suffer here
Jesuits those children to be near
Whom once their parents durst not rear?

XIII

Did ever Romish priest maintain
The English orders in their reign,
And lose a pension for his pain?

XIV

Did e'er their persecuting fury
So drop an honest man, to curry
Favour with cardinal De Fleury?

XV

What makes old Jacobites surprise
The world by praising to the skies
Your steps, as honest and as wise?

XVI

Whence your respect to Waldegrave shown?
What makes him represent the throne?—
His kindred's virtues, or his own?

624

XVII

To George why does your conduct raise
More foes in half a twelvemonth's space,
Than Will or Harry all their days?

VI.—TO MR. LISTER,

ON HIS CONSTANT ATTENDANCE AT PARLIAMENT.

While others poorly shrink away,
Like phantoms at approach of day,
Not sickness' self can Lister make
The well-fought combat to forsake.
Vain are the strong assaults of pain;
His friends' persuasions are as vain.
His country's grief, too plainly known,
Prevents the minding of his own.
Nor morning-watch diverts his aim;
O'erpower'd, outvoted,—still the same.
He falls, averse to fly or yield,
As Britons ought, upon the field.
Our Sodom might from fate be free,
Had she but fifty such as he.
But, ah! so low our ebb, I fear,
Scarcely can ten be reckon'd there.

Still be your glorious course pursued:
Opposing ill is doing good.
With generous love to Britain fired,
Persist, unbroken and untired,

625

Till Winnington shall steady prove,
Till Pulteney shall sir Robert love,
And Oxford's earl a courtier be,
And Shippen leave his honesty,
And Wyndham common-sense forego,
And Oglethorpe a coward grow,
And northern folk refuse a place,
And Billy blush in sign of grace,
And courtiers loathe a money-bill,
And Bob be tired with doing ill.
May all these wonders first be view'd,
Ere you be tired with doing good!

VII.—ON SIR ROBERT WALPOLE'S SAYING HE WOULD NEVER EMPLOY BOLINGBROKE TO WRITE FOR HIM.

No; let not Saint-John plead a cause like thine!
The man is fit for 't, but the pen too fine.
Select some champion worthier to succeed,—
Thy friend John Dunton, advocate in need.
More apt supporters far thy wisdom knows,
For dull, low rhyme, or pert, abusive prose.
Let the High-German scribble for his fees;
And hire the' immortal author of “the Bees.”
Horneck unpadlock'd then may write his fill,
And vice be still extoll'd by Mandeville.

626

VIII.—ON A CONFERENCE IN FRANCE.

Poor Horace, as the French assure ye,
Waited on cardinal De Fleury;
Horace a strong protector needing,
Renown'd for wit as well as breeding.
“Dear sir,” quoth he, “our house remember:
Patch up some peace before December;
Or else to Tyburn we are damn'd all
At Christmas next, by way of gambol.”

Dear cardinal, this supplication
Reject, and hear the British nation:
The brothers and their cause forsaking,
Promote our Christmas merry-making.
Their guilt would soon procure them scourges,
Unbutton but your cloak like Burgess;
They're gone, in friendship if you falter:
They've had their swing without a halter
Now long enough; O show the minute
That lets them take their swing too in it!

IX.—TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF QUEENSBOROUGH.

Let the knight on beauty lour,
Loveliest ornament of power;
Let him, at a stager's nod,
Painted, prostitute, and proud,
Hate to real charms display,
Basely sworn to ruin Gay:

627

Who his hatred would not bear,
Favouring smiles from you to share?
Happy Gay! ordain'd to know
Such a friend and such a foe!

What, though sense and wit to love
Courtiers' idle rage may move?
Calmly you unhurt retreat,
Banish'd from the meaner great;
Take your beauties thence away:
Full revenge is to obey.
Let the vulgar rank and face
Borrow lustre from the place.
There where friendship false beguiles,
Basely murdering while it smiles;
There where proud despotic will
Boasts the power of doing ill;
There where paltry gold outvies
All the lustre of your eyes;—
Generous and just and fair,
Why, O why should you be there?

X.—ON THE STREET-ROBBERIES.

I

The robbers every day increase,
And streets are nightly plunder'd:
Yet he who takes a thief, oft sees
Not sixpence in the hundred.

628

II

Pay down the hundred pound in court,
When culprit is convicted.
This by the cock-pit, men report,
Is fiercely contradicted.

III

No moneys hastily must go
To pay such calls as these are.
What forms and business mean, they know;
What perquisites and fees are.

IV

They value not the public ill;
Let them wear gold that win it.
Let some folks rob without-door still,
So some may rob within it.

V

No treasurers prompt-payment love:
They speak with fellow-feeling;
The precedent might dangerous prove,
To punish men for stealing.

XI.—EPIGRAM.

[From sunset to daybreak, when folks are asleep]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

From sunset to daybreak, when folks are asleep,
New watchmen are 'pointed the 'chequer to keep:
New locks and new bolts fasten every door,
And the chests are made three times as strong as before.

629

Yet the thieves, when 'tis open, the treasure may seize;
For the same are still trusted with care of the keys.
From the night to the morning, 'tis true, all is right:
But who shall secure it from morning to night?

XII.—ANACREONTIC.

[No disappointment, friend, has power]

No disappointment, friend, has power
To make me sigh or pine an hour.
Should some inferior rival get
The start by not deserving it,
A Whig's prosperity should move
No more my envy than my love.
Say, should this place for Master know
At once an alien and a foe;
I hope to view with mind serene
The ruin I have long foreseen.
Shall I for trifles grieve? shall I,
Who saw my father banish'd fly,
And Walpole live, and Anna die?

XIII.—ANOTHER.

[If e'er I cast a wishful eye]

If e'er I cast a wishful eye
On the gilt chariot rolling by;
Or pined to find my equals grow
To pomp, while I remain below;

630

My breast if ever envy tore
To view my country's foes in power,
To see, while merit trampled lies,
A Walpole or a Hoadly rise:—
If e'er at objects mean as those
One pang, except of pity, rose;
May I ere death so wretched be,
That even they may pity me!

XIV.—AN EPIGRAM.

[A steward once, the Scripture says]

A steward once, the Scripture says,
When order'd his accounts to pass,
To gain his master's debtors o'er,
Cried, “For a hundred write fourscore.”
Near as he could, sir Robert, bent
To follow gospel-precedent,
When told a hundred, late, would do,
Cried, “I beseech you, sir, take two.”
In merit which should we prefer,
The steward or the treasurer?
Neither for justice cared a fig;
Too proud to beg, too old to dig;
Both bountiful themselves have shown
In things that never were their own.
But here a difference we must grant:—
One robb'd the rich to keep off want;
T'other, vast treasures to secure,
Stole from the public and the poor.

631

XV.—ANOTHER.

[When patriots sent a bishop 'cross the seas]

When patriots sent a bishop 'cross the seas,
They met to fix the Pains and Penalties;
While true-blue blood-hounds on his death were bent,
Thy mercy, Walpole, voted banishment;
Or forced thy sovereign's orders to perform,
Or proud to govern as to raise the storm.
Thy goodness, shown in such a dangerous day,
He only who received it can repay:
Thou never justly recompensed canst be,
Till banish'd Francis do the same for thee.

XVI.—ANOTHER.

[Though some would give sir Bob no quarter]

Though some would give sir Bob no quarter,
But long to hang him in his garter;
Yet sure he will deserve to have
Such mercy as in power he gave.
Send him abroad to take his ease,
By Act of Pains and Penalties:
But if he e'er comes here again,
Law, take thy course, and hang him then.

632

XVII.—ANOTHER.

[Four shillings in the pound we see]

Four shillings in the pound we see,
And well may rest contented,
Since war—Bob swore 't should never be—
Is happily prevented.

But he, now absolute become,
May plunder every penny;
Then blame him not for taking some,
But thank for leaving any.

XVIII.—ANOTHER.

[Let Hal his treason now confess]

Let Hal his treason now confess,
Display'd to every eye:
'Twas base in Hal to sell a peace,
But great in Bob to buy.

Which most promotes Great Britain's gain,
To all mankind is clear;
One sends our treasure 'cross the main,
One brings the foreign here.

But if 'tis fit to give rewards
Or punishments to either,
Why, make them both together lords,
Or hang them both together.

633

XIX.—ANOTHER.

[At scribblers poor, that write to eat]

At scribblers poor, that write to eat,
Ye wags, give over jeering;
Since, gall'd by Harry, Bob the Great
Has stoop'd to pamphleteering.

Would not one champion on his side
For love or money venture?
Must knighthood's mirror, spite of pride,
So mean a combat enter?

To take the field his weakness shows,
Though well he could maintain it:
Since Hal no honour has to lose,
Pray, how should Robin gain it?

Worthy each other are the two:
Halloo, boys! fairly start ye:
May he be hated worse than you
That ever tries to part ye!

XX.—ANOTHER.

[If we may credit Newcombe's lay]

If we may credit Newcombe's lay,
Sir Robert, unperplex'd,
Is Greek Demosthenes one day,
And Roman Tully next.

634

What, though their eloquence be lost?
Their vices he may hold;
The Roman's cowardice and boast,
The Grecian's love of gold.

XXI.—ANOTHER.

[Quoth sir Robert, “Our ribands, I find, are too few,—]

Quoth sir Robert, “Our ribands, I find, are too few,—
Of St. Andrew's the green, and St. George's the blue.
I must find out a red one, a colour more gay,
That will tie up my subjects with pride to' obey.
Though the 'chequer may suffer by prodigal donors,
Yet the king's ne'er exhausted, that fountain of honours.”

XXII.—A PANEGYRIC, 1731.

[With favour and fortune fastidiously blest]

[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

With favour and fortune fastidiously blest,
He's loud in his laugh, and coarse in his jest;
Of favour and fortune unmerited vain,
A sharper in trifles, a dupe in the main;
Achieving of nothing, still promising wonders,
By dint of experience improving in blunders;

635

Oppressing true merit, exalting the base,
And selling his country to purchase a place;
A jobber of stocks by retailing false news,
A prater at Court in the style of the mews;
Of virtue and worth by profession a giber,
Of juries and senates the bully and briber!
Though I name not the wretch, you know whom I mean;
'Tis the cur-dog of Britain, and spaniel of Spain!

XXIII.—EPIGRAM.

[To save a scoundrel, Scotch and English meet]

To save a scoundrel, Scotch and English meet,
And dukes and statesmen for his life entreat,
Whose every deed deserves a halter well,
Excepting that, perhaps, for which he fell.
But say, what intercession do we hear
For the learn'd prelate and the gallant peer?
Whose worth and virtues enemies allow,
Excepting that for which they suffer now.
For these what statesmen pray, what courtiers plead?
Tell it, to future ages tell the deed,—
That those for Charteris did a pardon gain,
Who Rochester in banishment detain,
And bid the exiled Ormond die in Spain!

636

XXIV.—A LITANY.

From dethroning our prince for what ministers do;
From a church false to kings, and a meeting-house true;
And from Whigs of all sorts, both the old and the new;
May we be deliver'd!

From rebellious obedience and Whig moderation;
From our liberties saved by impris'ning the nation;
And from murdering with or without proclamation;
May we be deliver'd!

From a blind faith and zeal, both in church and in state;
From the meeting, at stake or on scaffold, our fate;
And from re-reformation, or Rome at the gate;
May we be deliver'd!

From an honest man's blame, and a villain's applause;
From our using ill means to support a good cause;
From decrying the gospel, and slighting the laws;
May we be deliver'd!

From a Dutch commonwealth and a Frenchified regence;
From the preaching to queens, not to kings, an obedience;
And from holding resistance, and teaching allegiance;
May we be deliver'd!

637

From priestcraft, and eke staff and shoes at the gate;
From repealing of Bibles and Creeds by the state;
And alike from a Quaker's and Cardinal's hat;
May we be deliver'd!

From laws made or annull'd for a party alone;
From riots on one side, on t'other side none;
From a duke in a mob, or a duke in a throne;
May we be deliver'd!

From making or murdering lords on occasion;
From bought senates in red, or mob-administration;
From the bishops' declaring and Mar's declaration;
May we be deliver'd!

From revenge in an office, and Papists in power;
From justice impartial that stoops to a whore;
From impeaching an Ormond, and not ------;
May we be deliver'd!

638

TO THE HON. BRIGADIER-GENERAL JONES, AT BLETCHINGTON.

Dear Sir,

Permit me thus accounts in part to clear
With Jones, the hospitable brigadier.
Such paymasters are rhymers mostly found,
Receiving substance and returning sound:
Though well you know, where nought is to be seen
The king must lose a debt,—nay, more, the queen.
Though fond of verse, all falsehood I defy,
Convinced that truth is truest poesy.
Old, musty whimsies are disdain'd by me,
Parnassus and Apollo's trumpery!
Let Pagans or let school-boys trifle thus:
I like Scot's horse far more than Pegasus;
And Bletchington to me more pleasure yields
Than Virgil's prospect of Elysian fields,—
Dreams of the ivory gate:—That's right, say I,
He fairly tells us that he tells a lie.
Wherefore sincere my thanks you may suppose:
My verse is quite as hearty as my prose.
All fiction utterly renounced you see,
And incense of poetic flattery:
And as for truth, why should I spend an hour
Merely to tell you what you knew before?
Your meals how plenteous, and how good your wine,
How sound the beer was, and the rack how fine;

639

How fair the garden smiled, not large, but neat;
The turf how verdant, and the bean how sweet!
Books too I found by your indulgent care:
The wild, diverting story of Voltaire;
Whose match in writing we but seldom find,
In life the vilest scoundrel of mankind!
With better title far may Berkeley please:
His writings and his life are of a piece;
Secure in truth, though Mandeville should rise,
Bold to defend the usefulness of vice;
Or impious Gordon show unpriestly wrath,
Of reason “independent” as of faith.

Nor yet must Anglesea unmention'd go,
Though my plain lines are uncorrect and low.
I own, acknowledgments are justly due;
But leave all speeches, brigadier, to you:
To you, who with address are fitly stored
To please the courtly and uncourtly lord.
Improper I: his herds I went not near;
I shunn'd his horses, but admired his deer.
As for his converse,—hold; I'll not entreat
You'll bear in memory what you can't forget,

640

O how I grieve the gout his limbs has laid,
Unnerved, inglorious, in a rustic shade!
While meaner peers their house and rank defile:—
The courtier's friend and bishop's foe, Argyle;
Isla, who plies for every purpose there;
While he, infirm, desists from public care,
When the loud tempest wants the pilot's art,
And much requires his head, but more his heart.

Happy who, far from court, and far from crime,
And safe from statesmen, can enjoy their time!
Long may you, sir, enjoy your sweet recess,
In ease and health retain your happiness!
I 'm sure you need not envy British kings,
While Walpole serves them, and while Cibber sings,
Truth dwells not near their thrones, nor can there be
In all St. James's found one Anglesea.
Your friend is better, and the world declares
Your poet is at least as good as theirs.

TO THE CONCEALED AUTHOR OF ------, 1708–9.

Such is the fate of modern writers still,
That those that least are able take the quill;
To fame by books they awkwardly aspire,
And doom them to the press and not the fire:

641

While you, by too much modesty confined,
Only in secret to yourself have shined;
(Like lamps of urns with subterranean light,
Your fire as lasting, and your flame as bright;)
Till, by some accident at length reveal'd,
You show the glories you had long conceal'd.
But, ah! as soon as to the public shown,
Let not the lustre be for ever gone.
Write! write again! your youthful Muse display;
Nor let there be a dawn without a day.

Valour has in your verse his journey run,
Bright as the' inspiring god of wit,—the sun.
Our heroine in noble lines we see,
And Boadicea turns Penthesile.
Poetic Greece and warlike Rome conspire
To raise the English hero's glory higher.
You scorn to tell us in a vulgar strain
The naked actions of a great campaign.
Your artful Muse in never-dying lays
Finds means to praise him in another's praise.
So Virgil, in an age like ours refined,
A prince's praise judiciously design'd:
No truths unveil'd throughout the whole appear,
No Actian navy or Philippic war:
Starting from Troy he to Hesperia tends;
Begins at Venus, and at Cæsar ends.

642

THE EMBLEM.

See where they've set Sacheverell up,—
Betwixt the devil and the pope.
They call'd him “cruel and uncivil”
For dooming Low-Church to the devil;
“Uncharitable,” when he said
Peter and Jack a league had made:
And yet their wise retaliation
Returns the railing accusation.
They've dress'd him up in fireworks, too;
As moderate Nero used to do
With Christians that, like him, were true:
And while their emblem would condemn
The picture he has drawn of them,
Their moderation's known to be,
Not calmness, but hypocrisy.

643

Then let this picture hang in view,
To prove the doctor's sermon true:
Only with this small alteration,—
“This picture a rebuke to passion,
Design'd and drawn by moderation!”

EPIGRAMS.

[_]

Epigrams missing from this section are reproduced elsewhere in English Poetry.

II.—A CONTRAST.

When Anna dies, what genuine grief appears!
What mournful silence and ill-boding tears!
When George expires, what multitudes employ
Their shouts and bonfires to proclaim their joy!
Hope not, ye Tories, from a coming reign;
Resume despair, and own the triumph vain:
Another George may rise, but not another Anne.

644

III.—ON THE QUEEN'S HERMITAGE.

When Charles the Austrian laid his grandeur down,
He found retirement, but he lost a crown.
Here both extremes together join'd are seen,—
The cave, the court,—the hermit and the queen.

V.—ANOTHER.

[You build, my friend, in honour of your time]

You build, my friend, in honour of your time,
Italian structures in an English clime;
The finish'd pile forbidding to be shown,
While high-raised bricks immure the polish'd stone.
Thus architecture rises worthy thee,—
For none to' inhabit, and for none to see!

645

VI.—ANOTHER.

[Once forms of conjuring were penal all]

Once forms of conjuring were penal all,
And prayers to Beelzebub were capital;
And once, when priests the nation over-awed,
Gifts to the poor were reckon'd gifts to God.
Now to give lands to God is counted evil;
But all have freedom to adore the devil.

VII.—ANOTHER.

[Some laugh, while others mourn]

Some laugh, while others mourn;
Some toil, while others play;
One dies, and one is born:
So runs the world away.

646

EPIGRAMS: FROM THE GREEK.

[_]

Epigrams missing from this section are reproduced elsewhere in English Poetry.

649

X.—EPIGRAM.

[To mountain-nymphs, and Pan that caverns loves]

To mountain-nymphs, and Pan that caverns loves,
Satyrs, and sacred dryads of the groves,
A hunter, missing his expected prize,
Hangs up his dogs themselves in sacrifice.

650

XI.—EPIGRAM.

[Hail, Memory and Oblivion, glorious pair!]

Hail, Memory and Oblivion, glorious pair!
Our joy to lengthen, and to lose our care!

XV.—EPIGRAM.

[Death snatch'd me in my tender years]

Death snatch'd me in my tender years,
While innocent and void of cares.
Weep not for me, ordain'd to know
But little life and little woe.

651

XVI.—ANOTHER.

[At thirty-six, ye Powers Divine]

At thirty-six, ye Powers Divine,
With life contented, I resign.
'Tis then the flower of age is past;
And three-lived Nestor died at last.

653

TO MR. DAVY.

Dear Sir,—For such you are, who show
You love me, and dare tell me so;
Justly my verse to you I send,
Who prove in Devonshire a friend;
Glad of a friend, though Robin knows
I ne'er was troubled much at foes.

How happy glides my life away,
I almost am afraid to say,
Lest overstrain'd it seem to be,
And too poetic poetry.
Yet take it as it is: Believe,
Had I a purpose to deceive,
I would not first begin with you,
To tell a lying story to.

My fortune moderate I confess:
I well could like it, were it less.
Contented with it as it lies,
I don't expect to fall or rise.
No anxious thoughts my mind engross
With hope of gain or fear of loss;
Nor would I spend an hour to aim
At gaining that child's rattle, fame.
Plenty and peace my household bless,
And constant, cheerful cleanliness.
Here kings and lords and knights may see
True conjugal felicity.
No jars or jealousies are spread;
No rivalship divides the bed;

654

Nor time nor sickness can remove
The rooted friendship of our love.
My palace, built in Stuart's reign,
Ere Jekyl's Statute of Mortmain,
Pleasure affords without expense,
Retirement with magnificence.
Without, are beauteous prospects seen,
Gardens and river, hills and green.
Within, my books at will supply
Delightful, useful company.
And if there near my house could be
Neighbours like you but two or three,
Fancy itself could wish no more
Than to continue as before.

If you abroad would have me go,
I can but tell you what you know,—
That I've alarm'd the country round
By raising board to twenty pound.
Huge provocation, I confess!
So great, it never will be less.
Poor Saunders drudged incessant here
The longer part of twenty year.
What riches did his kindred find?
He left his Victor plate behind.
Full thirty years has Rayner stay'd,—
Rayner, oft praised, but never paid.
His boarders, though so gainful thought,
Cost hundreds more than e'er they brought.
Would I afford to spend like those,
Or else like later masters lose;

655

And hold my tongue, and bite my lip,
For honour of the mastership;
Spend on my gentry every groat,
Obliged prodigiously for nought;
And, while I send my child to beg,
Pull off my hat, and make my leg;
Me doubtless half the shire would own
The rarest master e'er was known.

But I, alas! was born and bred
Just at preferment's fountain-head;
Might have had patrons not a few,
Adorn'd with garters green and blue;
Might long ere this have raised my style
To sing Newcastle or Argyle;
Perhaps by chancellors been known,
From Cowper quite to Talbot down.
But let each mortal, friend and foe,
(Who knows it not already,) know
That if I flatter man for gain,
That man shall be my sovereign.
Who next? I'll tell when it comes to;
Only it shall not be Sir Blue.

July, 1735.

TO W. COLMAN, ESQ., 1737.

Dear Friend,—If I may call you so,
And not make each man else my foe
By whom these verses may be seen,
Because it is not he I mean:

656

I from a friend ne'er turn my face,
No, not in Atterbury's case;
And 'tis my grave desire to bear
Indelible that character;
What party-rage soever fires
My betters,—lords and knights and squires.—
Who pay obeisance to the shoe-string,
And lick the spittle, of Sir Two-string.

I shall not now to plead for strive
My well-known lines of thirty-five;
Impolitic, why, let them be,
And mean and poor in poetry:
Though there the world I still defy
To show one tittle of a lie;
And where the shoe pinch'd, well I knew,—
Not speaking false, but speaking true.
A portraiture shall now be shown
Will please folks better than my own.
I'll try to draw, in little, here
A perfect master's character,
Admired, applauded:—you'll descry,
At the first sight, it is not I.

His speech is frequent, warm, and large,
About the' importance of his charge:
“The nation's good depends on this,
As well as towns' and families'.
What virtues must the' instructor share,
Who such a burden knows to bear!”
Here let him shrug his sides, and make
As if he felt his shoulders ache.

657

This arduous task to undergo,
He asks advice of high and low;
With meekness and attention hears
Sisters and aunts and grandmothers;
Nay, with soft smile and accent mild,
Inquires the temper of the child,
Who best by kindness will be led;
Then chucks the chin, and strokes the head.
Distinction nice he still can make
For parents' and for fortune's sake.
“One must be favour'd, and so forth,
Because his friends are men of worth.
The rich more honour must have done 'em,
Because there more depends upon 'em:
For by experience 't will be found
That he who has a thousand pound
Has twice the weight in any place
Which he that but five hundred has.”
At proper times he seems to blame
“The poor who dare at learning aim,
And can't the whole expense afford:
The world, you know, is overstored.”
His skill the' affection can engage
Of youth approaching manly age;
Who greater freedom now enjoys,
As past the discipline of boys;
And learns to grow to man the faster
By conversation with the master.
He grieves that “custom over-rules,
And keeps that whipping up in schools.

658

Let wicked rods be thrown aside,
And canes or ferulas applied;
Or let each schoolmaster invent
Some more ingenuous punishment:
For, doubtless, in bare skins to deal
Appears but coarse and ungenteel.”
He never could be reconciled
To—“Spare the rod, and spoil the child.”
He wonders much “men should not find
Methods to' instruct a growing mind
Far speedier than the common road;
Since tedious work it is allow'd
Latin and Greek for years to stammer
By help of dictionary and grammar.”
Hence all grammarian-quacks he buys,
Of every sort and every size,
That readier paths of learning show,
From Hoole to paltry Clarke and Low.
He grants but very rarely plays;
“For schools are spoil'd by holidays.”
He thinks the church has given store,
And rather wishes less than more;
For who the idleness can bear
Of Eton or of Westminster?
On the old truth it is agreed,
“The master's eye makes fat the steed:”
And 'tis as easily discern'd,
The master's eye makes scholars learn'd.
And hence they scarce must leave his sight,
At meat or play, by day or night;

659

Nor go, except beneath his eye,
Where kings can't go by deputy.
To prove his diligence complete,
His boys by six at latest meet.
Short days he pieces up with night,
And seeks for truth by candle-light.
Who would not industry adore,
That toils so oft while others snore;
Though it sometimes its turn should take,
And snore as well when others wake?

In converse no man less to seek
To praise a Roman or a Greek,
And pity those who strangers be
To writings of antiquity.
Betwixt contending parties mild,
He wishes both were reconciled.
He “worthy men in both can show;
And faults on both sides are,” you know:
Which you may take upon his troth;
He best should know, who is of both.
An umpire often in debate
Immoderately moderate;
And, of his candour to assure ye,
A furious enemy to fury.
Constant as the revolving sun
Christmas or Whitsuntide brings on,
He spreads his glory far and wide,—
As far, at least, as he can ride.
Since people often are in doubt
Where best to place their children out,

660

'Tis but the office of a friend
To show on whom they may depend.
Full thirty miles of dirty road
He reckons in his neighbourhood.
But parents wise desire to know
How children fare, and what they do:
And well he understands to please
With tales of rising geniuses;
Describing how he finds their vein,
Explaining how he can explain.
For truth of fact that none may doubt him,
He bears his vouchers still about him:—
“That Latin by a child was made
Of seven years old,” without his aid:
“A spirit in this verse is seen
Beyond the standard of fourteen:”
“This declamation scarce you'll see
Excell'd at university!”
“And all this by themselves was done?”
“O, that you may depend upon.”

For fear your patience I oppress,
I here break off the' unfinish'd piece;
And only add,—Whoever tries
By virtue such as this to rise,
My life for yours, will make his way,
Sure as the vicar could of Bray!

University of Virginia Library

VERSES UPON MY FATHER,

THE REV. SAMUEL WESLEY, A. M., RECTOR OF EPWORTH.

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO MY BROTHER CHARLES.

AN ELEGY ON DR. FRANCIS ATTERBURY,

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.

VERSES

WRITTEN UNDER SEVERE DISAPPOINTMENT.

PSALM XCVIII.

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

PSALM XCIII.

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

THE SONG OF THE THREE CHILDREN.

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI

XXXII

TO MY SISTER LAMBERT, ON HER MARRIAGE.

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

TO MR. JUSON, ON HIS MARRIAGE.

TO MR. BOURNE, ON HIS MARRIAGE.

TO MR. PEARCE, ON HIS MARRIAGE.

LINES ON ROBERT NELSON, ESQ.,

THE AUTHOR OF “A COMPANION TO THE FASTS AND FESTIVALS OF THE CHURCH,” &C.

ON DR. MIDDLETON.

MELISSA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN.

WROOTE: A HEROIC POEM.